Class Schedule
Transportation Engineering (CEC209)
(3-1-0)
Tuesday : 10:00 - 10:50 AM
Wednesday: 11:00 - 11:50 AM
Thursday : 10:00 - 10:50 AM
Friday : 10:00 - 10:50 AM
Prerequisites:
• Basic Mathematics
• Mechanics of Solid
Course Objectives:
To provide basic knowledge in transportation so that students will be able to
solve transportation related problems. The understanding of operation of
different modes of transportation will enable the students to plan, design,
operate and manage highways, railways and air transportation infrastructure in
an efficient way.
Learning Outcome:
• have basic understanding of factors influencing geometrical
elements of different modes of transportation.
• be introduced to the concepts of design of various
transportation infrastructure.
• know the application of scientific theories for maintenance of
transportation infrastructure.
Lecture Plan
Number of
Sl No. Content Lectures with
Tutorials
1 Highway Geometric Design: Historical development of roads, Road
development plans, Highway alignment surveys, Road patterns, 13
Cross section elements, Sight distances, Horizontal and vertical alignment.
Highway Materials and Pavement Design: Desirable properties and quality
control tests,
2 10
Design factors for flexible and rigid pavements, Design of flexible and rigid
pavement using relevant codes
Pavement Construction and Maintenance: Construction of various layers of
3 flexible pavement, Road construction equipment, joints in rigid pavements, 4
Various types of failures, Evaluation and remedial Measures
Railway Engineering: Components of Railway track, Stresses in Railway
track,
4 Railway alignment, concepts of cant excess and deficiency, safe permissible 13
speed, transition curves, Widening of gauges and track clearances,
Points and Crossings, Stations, Signaling
Airport Engineering: Aircraft characteristics and their impact on planning of
an airport, selection of site for an airport, airport obstruction, imaginary
surfaces,
5 12
runway orientation clam period and wind coverage, Runway and taxiway
geometric designs, runway configuration,
Airport Traffic control Aids
Recommended Text Books:
1. Khanna, S. K., Justo, C. E. G. and Veeraragavan, A. (2017). Highway engineering (10th
Edition), Nem Chand & Bros.
2. Chandra, S. and Agarwal, M.M. (2013). Railway engineering. Oxford University Press, Inc..
3. Khanna, S.K. Arora, M.G. and Jain, S.S. (1999). Airport Planning and Design, Nem Chand &
Bros.
Recommended References:
1. Thom, N. (2008). Principles of pavement engineering (p. 470). London: Thomas Telford.
2. Horonjeff, R., McKelvey, F. X., Sproule, W., and Young, S. (1962). Planning and design of
airports (Vol. 4). New York: McGraw-Hill.
3. Chakroborty, P., and Das, A. (2017). Principles of transportation engineering. PHI Learning
Pvt.Ltd
4. Huang, Y. H. (2004). Pavement analysis and design. Pearson Education.
5. Wright, P. H., & Paquette, R. J. (1987). Highway engineering.
Tentative Evaluation Scheme
Type/Name Weightage
Quiz 10 %
Assignment 10 %
Mid Semester 32 %
End Semester 48%
lecture 1
Introduction to
transportation
engineering
1.1 Overview
• Transportation fulfills the basic human needs like mobility
etc.
• It plays a major role in the development of the human
civilization.
• There is a strong correlation between the quality of transport
facilities and standard of living.
• The solution to transportation problems must be analytically
based, economically sound, socially credible, environmentally
sensitive, and practically acceptable and sustainable.
• The transportation solution should be safe, rapid,
comfortable, convenient, economical, and ecofriendly for
both men and material.
1.2 Transportation system:
In the last couple of decades transportation systems
analysis has emerged as a recognized profession. More
and more government organizations, universities,
researchers, consultants, and private industrial groups
around the world are becoming truly multi-modal in their
orientation and are opting a systematic approach to
transportation problems.
1.2.1 Diverse characteristics:
The characteristics of transportation system that makes it diverse and complex
are listed below:
1. Multi-modal: Covering all modes of transport; air, land, and sea for both
passenger and freight.
2. Multi-sector: Encompassing the problems and viewpoints of government,
private industry, and public.
3. Multi-problem: Ranging across a spectrum of issues that includes national
and international policy, planning of regional system, the location and
design of specific facilities, carrier management issues, regulatory,
institutional and financial policies.
4. Multi-objective: Aiming at national and regional economic development,
urban development, environment quality, and social quality, as well as
service to users and financial and economic feasibility.
5. Multi-disciplinary: Drawing on the theories and methods of engineering,
economics, operations research, political science, psychology, other
natural, and social sciences, management and law.
1.2.2 Study context
The context in which transportation system is studied is also
very diverse and are mentioned below:
❖ Planning range: Urban transportation planning, producing
long range plans for 5-25 years for multimodal transportation
systems in urban areas as well as short range programs of
action for less than five years.
❖ Passenger transport: Regional passenger transportation,
dealing with inter-city passenger transport by air, rail, and
highway and possible with new modes.
❖ Freight transport: Routing and management, choice of
different modes of rail and truck.
❖ International transport: Issues such as containerization, inter-
modal co-ordination.
1.2.3 Background: A changing world
Four critical dimensions of change in transportation system are:
➢ Change in the demand: When the population, income, and land-
use pattern changes, the pattern of demand changes; both in the
amount and spatial distribution of that demand.
➢ Changes in the technology: As an example, earlier, only two
alternatives (bus transit and rail transit) were considered for urban
transportation. But, now new systems like LRT, MRTS, etc. over a
variety of alternatives.
➢ Change in operational policy: Variety of policy options designed to
improve the efficiency, such as incentive for car-pooling, bus fare,
road tolls etc.
➢ Change in values of the public: Earlier all beneficiaries of a system
was monolithically considered as users. Now, not one system can be
beneficial to all, instead one must identify the target groups like
rich, poor, young, work trip, leisure etc.
1.2.4 Role of transportation engineer
• In spite of the diversity of problem types, institutional contexts and technical
perspectives there is an underlying unity: a body of theory and set of basic
principles to be utilized in every analysis of transportation systems.
• The core of this is the transportation system analysis approach. The focus of this is
the interaction between the transportation and activity systems of region.
• This approach is to intervene, delicately and deliberately in the complex fabric of
society to use transport effectively in coordination with other public and private
actions to achieve the goals of that society.
• For this the analyst must have substantial understanding of the transportation
systems and their interaction with activity systems; which requires understanding
of the basic theoretical concepts and available empirical knowledge.
1.2.5 Basic premise of a transportation system:
• P1: The total transportation system must be viewed as a single
multi-modal system.
• P2: Considerations of transportation system cannot be
separated from considerations of social, economic, and
political system of the region.
Steps for the analysis of transportation system:
❖ S1: Consider all modes of transportation
❖ S2: Consider all elements of transportation like persons, goods,
carriers (vehicles), paths in the network facilities in which
vehicles are going, the terminal, etc.
❖ S3: Consider all movements of passengers and goods for every
O-D pair.
❖ S4: Consider the total trip for every flows for every O-D over all
modes and facilities.
1.3 Major disciplines of
transportation
Transportation Planning
Geometric Design
Pavement Design
Traffic Engineering
1.3.1 Transportation planning:
Transportation planning essentially involves the development of
a transport model which will accurately represent both the
current as well as future transportation system.
1.3.2 Geometric design:
Geometric design deals with physical proportioning of other
transportation facilities, in contrast with the structural design of
the facilities.
The topics include the cross-sectional features, horizontal
alignment, vertical alignment and intersections.
1.3.3 Pavement analysis and design:
▪ Pavement design deals with the structural design of flexible
pavements, rigid pavements, paving materials, determination of
the layer thickness, and construction & maintenance procedures.
▪ The design covers structural aspects, functional aspects,
drainage.
▪ Structural design ensures the pavement has enough strength to
withstand the impact of loads, functional design emphasizes on
the riding quality, and the drainage design protects the pavement
from damage due to water infiltration.
1.3.4 Traffic engineering:
• It covers a broad range of engineering applications with a
focus on the safety of the public, the efficient use of
transportation resources, and the mobility of people and
goods.
• It involves a variety of engineering and management skills,
including design, operation, and system optimization.
1.4 OTHER IMPORTANT DISCIPLINES
Public transportation
Financial and economic analysis
Environmental impact assessment
Accident analysis and reduction
Intelligent transport system
1. Public transportation/ Mass transportation:
❖ Deals with study of the transportation system that meets the travel need
of several people by sharing a vehicle.
❖ Generally focuses on the urban travel by bus & rail transit.
❖ Major topics include characteristics of various modes; planning,
management and operations; and policies for promoting public
transportation.
2. Financial and economic analysis:
❖ Transportation facilities require large capital investments. Therefore
it is imperative that who ever invests money should get the returns.
❖ The economic analysis of transportation project tries to quantify the
economic benefit which includes saving in travel time, fuel
consumption, etc.
3. Environmental impact assessment:
❖ Transportation; in spite of its benefits also causes depletion of fossil fuels
and the degradation of the environment.
❖ The environmental impact assessment attempts in quantifying the
environmental impacts and tries to evolve strategies for the mitigation and
reduction of the impact due to both construction and operation.
❖ The primary impacts are fuel consumption, air pollution, and noise
pollution.
4. Accident analysis and reduction
❖ Several statistics evaluates that more people are killed due to
transportation than great wars and natural disasters.
❖ This discipline of transportation looks at the causes of
accidents, from the perspective of human, road, and vehicle
and formulate plans for the reduction.
5. Intelligent transport system
❖ ITS offers better mobility, efficiency, and safety with the help
of the state-of-the-art technology to operate transportation
system much effectively.
2.1Overview
❖ Road transport is one of the most common mode
of transport.
❖ Roads in the form of trackways, human pathways
etc. were used even from the pre-historic times.
❖ many experiments were going on to make the
riding safe and comfort.
❖ Road construction became an inseparable part of
many civilizations and empires.
2.2 History of highway engineering
Ancient Roads
Roman roads
French roads
British roads
Modern roads
2.2.1 Ancient roads
▪ Human pathways would have been developed for
specific purposes leading to camp sites, food,
streams for drinking water etc.
▪ Track ways were emerged since loaded animals
required more horizontal and vertical clearances.
▪ Roads with harder surfaces were emerged to make
them capable of carrying greater wheel loads of
animal drawn vehicles.
▪ Traces of such hard roads were obtained from
various ancient civilization dated as old as 3500 BC.
▪ The earliest authentic record of road was found from
Assyrian empire constructed about 1900 BC.
2.2.2 Roman roads
Cross-section of Roman roads
❑ Romans who constructed an extensive system of roads radiating in many
directions from Rome.
❑ Romans recognized that the fundamentals of good road construction were
to provide good drainage, good material and good workmanship.
❑ The roads were very durable, and some are still existing.
❑ The roads were constructed on a firm - formed subgrade strengthened
where necessary with wooden piles.
❑ The roads were bordered on both sides by longitudinal drains.
❑ The next step was the construction of the agger, which contributed greatly to
moisture control in the pavement. This was a raised formation up to a 1
meter high and 15 m wide and was constructed with materials excavated
during the side drain construction. This was then topped with a sand leveling
course. The pavement structure on the top of the agger varied greatly.
❑ In the case of heavy traffic, a surface course of large 250 mm thick hexagonal
flag stones were provided.
❑ The roads were built straight regardless of gradient and used heavy
foundation stones at the bottom.
❑ Lime and volcanic puzzolana were added to make mortar and gravel was
added to this mortar to make concrete.
❑ Thus concrete was a major Roman road making innovation.
2.2.3 French roads
▪ The next major development in the road construction occurred during the
regime of Napoleon and the significant contributions were given by Tresaguet in
1764.
Cross-section of French roads
❖ He developed a cheaper method of construction than the lavish and locally
unsuccessful revival of Roman practice.
❖ The pavement used 200 mm pieces of quarried stone of a more compact form
and shaped such that they had at least one at side which was placed on a
compact formation.
❖ Smaller pieces of broken stones were then compacted into the spaces between
larger stones to provide a level surface.
❖ Finally the running layer was made with a layer of 25 mm sized broken stone.
❖ All this structure was placed in a trench in order to keep the running surface
level with the surrounding country side.
❖ This created major drainage problems which were counteracted by making the
surface as impervious as possible, cambering the surface and providing deep
side ditches.
❖ He enunciated the necessity for continuous organized maintenance, instead of
intermittent repairs if the roads were to be kept usable all times. For this he
divided the roads between villages into sections of such length that an entire
road could be covered by maintenance men living nearby.
2.2.4 British road
▪ The British government also gave importance to road construction. The British
engineer John Macadam introduced what can be considered as the first
scientific road construction method.
Cross-section of British roads
➢ Stone size was an important element of Macadam recipe.
➢ By empirical observation of many roads, he came to realize that 250 mm
layers of well compacted broken angular stone would provide the same
strength and stiffness and a better running surface than an expensive
pavement founded on large stone blocks.
➢ Thus he introduced an economical method of road construction.
➢ The mechanical interlock between the individual stone pieces provided
strength and stiffness to the course.
➢ But the inter particle friction abraded the sharp interlocking faces and
partly destroy the effectiveness of the course.
➢ This effect was overcome by introducing good quality interstitial finer
material to produce a well-graded mix.
➢ Such mixes also proved less permeable and easier to compact.
2.2.5 Modern Roads
❖ Largely follow Macadam's
construction method.
❖ Use of bituminous concrete and
cement concrete are the most
important developments.
❖ Various advanced and cost-effective
construction technologies are used.
❖ Development of new equipment help
in the faster construction of roads.
❖ Many easily and locally available
materials are tested in the
laboratories and then implemented
on roads for making economical and
durable pavements.
▪ The day by day increasing demand led to the emergence of other modes of
transportation like railways and travel by air.
▪ The development in private transport was much faster than public transport
mainly because of its advantages like accessibility, privacy, flexibility,
convenience and comfort.
▪ This led to the increase in vehicular traffic especially in private transport
network. Thus road space available was becoming insufficient to meet the
growing demand of traffic and congestion started.
▪ Increase in accidents has led to the increased attention towards control of
vehicles so that the transport infrastructure was optimally used.
▪ Various control measures like traffic signals, providing roundabouts and
medians, limiting the speed of vehicle at specific zones etc. were implemented.
▪ With the advancement of better roads and efficient control, more and more
investments were made in the road sector especially after the World wars.
▪ For optimal utilization of funds, one should know the travel pattern and travel
behavior. This has led to the emergence of transportation planning and demand
management.
