1.0 Introduction to Transportation Engineering Flashcards
is the application of scientific principles to the planning, design, operation and management of transportation system.
Transportation Engineering
- A system is something that may be thought of as a whole consisting of parts or components.
- is a functional system that provides a service (the movement of goods and people from place to place.
- is one of the major functional systems of modern society.
The transportation system
including streets, roads, and highways, railroads, airports, sea and river ports, pipelines and canals.
Physical Facilities
of vehicles, vessels, and aircraft.
Fleets
including vehicle maintenance facilities and office space.
Operating bases and facilities
Facility-oriented organizations or Operating organizations
Organizations
including vehicle routing, scheduling, and traffic control.
Operating Strategies
is described in terms of the accessibility of the mode, the level of mobility it provides, and its productivity.
Effectiveness
refers to the cost of getting to and from a place to another and depends primarily on geographical extensiveness.
Accessibility
is described in terms of speed or travel time.
Mobility
refers to some measure of the total amount of transportation provided per unit time. The amount of transportation is usually thought of as the product of the volume of goods or passengers carried and distance.
Productivity
- is the most dominant transportation mode.
- Very high accessibility to almost all potential destinations; direct service with very low door-to-door travel time; moderate line-haul speeds and; moderate capacities.
- Environmental impacts of the system are high, particularly in the case of air pollution.
Highways
- It includes traditional mass transit modes such as buses, streetcars, and light rail and rail rapid transit, as well as paratransit modes such as jitneys and dial-a-ride services.
- Line-haul speeds and door-to-door travel time vary.
- Environmental impacts are less than those of private automobiles.
Urban Transit
making work trips into dense central business districts.
Commuters
those without access to automobiles.
Captive riders
- This transportation system includes commercial airlines, airfreight carriers, and general aviation (private aircraft).
- High line-haul speed; accessibility is limited; capacities of individual aircraft are moderate; capital and operating costs are both high but high productivity results in moderate costs per passenger carried.
- Environmental impacts are significant, especially the noise impacts of commercial aviation.
Air
- This system provides moderate speeds and levels of accessibility, but traditional operating practices, which involve relatively short hauls between rail yards, where trains are broken up and reassembled, lead to high and unreliable door-to-door travel time.
- Capital costs of locomotives and railcars, and maintenance costs for track are also relatively high.
- Environmental impacts are comparatively low.
Rail
- This domestic transportation system consists of coastwise ocean shipping and barge lines operating on inland waterways.
- Provides low speed and relatively low accessibility, but extremely high capacities.
- Capital cost of vessels is high.
- Environmental impacts are relatively low but water pollution from routine discharges of oil and other pollutants, as well as from major oil spills involving tankers, is a significant problem.
Water
Scope of Highway Engineering
- Development, planning, and location
- Highway design, geometric, and structure
- Traffic performance and its control
- Materials, construction, and maintenance
- Economic, finance, and administration
- Roads are used by various types of road vehicles, like passenger cars, buses, trucks, pedal cycle, and animal drawn vehicle.
- It requires a relatively small investment for the government.
- It offers a complete freedom to road users to transfer the vehicle from one lane to another and from one road to another according to need and convenience.
- Speed and movement is directly related with the severity of accident.
- Road transport is the only means of transport that offers itself to the whole community alike.
Characteristics of Road Transport
exists wherever demand exceeds the capacity of the transportation system.
Traffic congestion
is a condition on transport networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queuing.
Traffic congestion
- Managing congestion
- Improving safety
- Providing equal access
- Protecting the environment
Performance of the transportation system
- Incorporating new technology
- Securing financial resources
- Developing adequate institutional arrangements
Performance of the transportation engineering profession, economic and political system
- The usual response to congestion was to build more ________
- This approach was always limited by the availability of ________.
- Political support for major expansions of the urban highway system is now lacking due to the potential ________________________.
capacity
funding
potential environmental impacts
Since ____, there have been repeated calls to shift from private automobiles to urban passenger transportation because of the environmental consequences and the cost of expanding the system.
1960
is a system of surcharging users of public goods that are subject to congestion through excess demand such as higher peak charges for use of bus services, metros, railways, and road pricing to reduce traffic congestion.
Congestion pricing
- A second major challenge is the continued improvement of ___________.
- Traffic accidents are of concern for all modes of transportation, but are perhaps most visible in highways and commercial air.
*____________ is continuing challenge for the transportation engineering profession because of public expectations that safety will continue to improve.
- The focus of agencies involved with transportation safety are improvement of safety of vehicles, traffic safety, safety research and development, and collection of accident data.
- These agencies investigates selected accidents involving all transportation modes, identifies safety problems, an serves as an advocate for transportation safety concerns.
Traffic Safety
The was _________________________________ created on November 8,1968 during the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO) Conference on Road Traffic at Vienna, Austria. A total of 52 contracting countries including the Philippines agreed to accept the system as described in the convention.
Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals
The Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals was created on ___________ during the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO) Conference on Road Traffic at Vienna, Austria. A total of 52 contracting countries including the Philippines agreed to accept the system as described in the convention.
November 8,1968
is a very legibly printed and very noticeable placard that informs people of the purpose of an object, or gives them instruction on the use of something.
Informative sign
Are traffic signs intended to instruct road users on what they must or should do (or not do) under a given set of circumstances? Other types may be signs located on streets and in parking lots having to do with parking, signs in public parks and on beaches, or on or in architectural facilities prohibiting specific types of activities.
Regulatory signs
Is a type of traffic sign that indicates a hazard ahead on the road that may not be readily apparent to a driver. In most countries, they usually take the shape of an equilateral triangle with a white background and a thick red border.
Warning Sign
Another continuing challenge has been to provide adequate access to the transportation system for all sorts of people.
Equality of Access
Three groups in particular that are seen as generally undeserved.
- Physically handicapped
- Elderly
- Poor
- One of the most important challenges to the transportation system is that of dealing with its environmental impacts.
- These include impacts on air quality, energy consumption, and land use.
Environmental Protection
- Displacement of resident and businesses
- Noise
- Impacts on wild life
- Impacts on water quality
- Visual impacts
- Temporary impacts during construction (noise, dust, reduced water quality due to erosion of unprotected slopes)
- Impacts in environmentally sensitive areas
Site-specific that impacts Environmental Protection
- Habitats of threatened or endangered species
- Flood plains
- Wetlands
- Coastal zones
- Prime agricultural lands
- Historical or archaeological sites
- Wild or scenic rivers
Examples of such areas that affects the Environment
- ___________ is commonly perceived as being the most serious environmental problem resulting from the transportation.
- Most transportation-related ___________ is the result of the use of highway vehicles in densely populated metropolitan areas.
Environmental Protection
Air pollution
- The major technological development of the past 20 years has been a concerted effort to take advantage of rapid advances in electronic technology.
- These technologies include information processing, communications, and control systems and are collectively known as intelligent transportation system (ITS).
- These ITS technologies are the subject of a major technological initiative involving government, business, academic, and research organizations.
New Technology
- Improve safety
- Reduce congestion
- Improve mobility and accessibility
- Reduce the environmental impact and increase energy efficiency
- Improve economic productivity
- Create a domestic ITS industry
The goals of the ITS program
- Improved traffic control systems
- Improvements in the provision of information about the transportation system to its users
- Automation of administrative and regulatory functions
- New or improved systems for warning users of hazards
- New vehicle control systems
- And other applications of electronic technology
These goals are to be achieved through:
- Securing adequate financial resources is another perennial challenge, both for:
- Public agencies, providing transportation facilities
- Private-sector firms, providing transportation services.
- The most common forms of user charges:
- Fuel taxes, which have been applied as a fixed charge per gallon/liter of fuel
sold. - Direct fares or tolls.
- Fuel taxes, which have been applied as a fixed charge per gallon/liter of fuel
Funding
- New arrangements have come about as a response to perceived deficiencies in the existing system. Often they have been imposed by outside agencies and in many cases they have been resisted by established institutions.
- In the recent past, the most conspicuous and enduring areas of institutional change have been (1) adjustments to the relationship between the public and private sectors and (2) attempts to overcome modal and jurisdictional fragmentation.
Institutional Arrangements
