CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION TO
TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING

OBU, IOT, 2016 E.C.

1. Overview
What is transportation?
Transportation is movement of people and goods from
one location to another by various modes such as: air,
rail, road, water, cable, pipelines and space.
 It is a Safe, efficient, reliable, and sustainable
movement of persons and goods over time and space.
What is Transportation Engineering?
Transportation engineering is an emerging discipline,
which deals with the analysis, planning, design,
construction, operation, and management of
integrated transportation systems in order to provide
for the safe, rapid, comfortable, convenient,
economical, and environmentally compatible
movement of people and goods (transport).

It is a sub-discipline of civil engineering.

Transportation engineering hold within a wide
variety of issues and areas including:
Design of highways, streets, intersections & mass
transit systems
Planning
Traffic control systems and devices
Travel demand and traffic flow
Sizing of transportation facilities
Operations and management for roadways
Highway sign visibility
Traffic congestion and safety hazards
The management and economics of
transportation systems…
I. Planning aspects
 include
Urban planning
Technical forecasting decisions
Technical forecasting decisions
 Passenger travel forecasting is done by urban
transportation planning model. i.e.,
 Trip generation – how many trips for what purpose
 Trip distribution - destination choice, where is the
traveler going
Mode choice - what mode is being taken
Route assignment - which streets or routes are
being used
 Forecasting traveler decisions
 auto ownership
 trip chaining – the decision to link individual trip
together in a tour
 the choice of residential or business location -
land use forecasting
II. Design aspects
 sizing of transportation facilities - lanes and facility
capacity
 designing the geometry of roadway – horizontal and
vertical alignment
 determining pavement materials and thickness
III. Operation and management aspects
 involves traffic engineering to facilitate vehicles
movement smoothly on the road
 Older techniques
- signs, signals, markings, and tolling.
 Newer technologies or intelligent transportation
systems
- advanced traveler information systems
(variable message signs),
- advanced traffic control systems
(ramp meters)
- vehicle infrastructure integration
 Facility planning and design involves
 Operation planning,
 logistics,
 Network analysis
 Financing,
 Policy analysis,
 Tasks of Civil Engineers in Transportation Engineering
includes
 planning, design, construction, maintenance,
and operation and Management of transportation
facilities.
 Before planning, the Engineer must take an inventory or
database that includes
 Population
 Travel patterns and volumes
 Land use
 Laws and regulations
 Economic activity
 Regional financial resources
 Transportation facilities and services
 Community values and expectations
 These inventories help the engineer create business models to
complete accurate forecasts of the future conditions of the
system.
2. The characteristics of Transportation Systems
 Multi-modal - air, land, and sea for both passenger
and freight
 Multi-sector - government, private industry, and
public
 Multi-problem
 national and international policy,
 planning of regional system,
 the location and design of specific facilities,
 carrier management issues,
 regulatory, institutional and financial policies
 Multi-objective
 national and regional economic development
 urban development
 environment quality
 social quality
 service quality to users
 financial and economic feasibility
 Multi-disciplinary
 engineering
 economics
 operations research
 political science
 psychology
 social and natural sciences
 management and law
Role players in Transportation
Diversity of transportation Engineering
1. Planning range
 Urban transportation planning for 5 -25 years
2. Passenger transport
 Inter-city passenger transport by air, rail, and
highway and possible with new modes
3. Freight transport
 Routing and management, choice of different modes
of rail and truck
4. International transport
 Containerization
 Inter-modal co-ordination
 Elements of a transportation system
 Infrastructure
Road, canal, rail,
air transfer points
supporting elements (signs, signals, safety)
 Vehicles
Planes, trains, autos, buses, ships, trucks
 Operators/Content
Drivers, pilots, freight, passengers
3. Major disciplines of transportation
1. Transportation Planning:- Involves
the development of a transport model
in order to forecast the future.
2. Geometric Design:- Deals with
physical proportioning of other
transportation facilities
 Cross-sectional features,
 Horizontal alignment,
 Vertical alignment,
 Intersections and
 Interchanges
3. Pavement Design:- Deals with the structural
design of roads both (bituminous and concrete) or
flexible and rigid.
 Drainage design

 Functional design

 Structural design

4. Traffic Engineering:- covers a broad range of

engineering applications with a focus on
 the safety of the public and infrastructure

 the efficient use of transportation resources

 the mobility of people and goods

Additional disciplines of transportation engineering
1. Public transportation:- study of the transportation
system that meets the travel need of several people by
sharing a vehicle.
 characteristics of various modes

 planning

 management and operations

 policies for promoting public transportation

2. Financial and economic analysis:- tries to

quantify the economic benefit and cost which
includes saving in travel time, fuel consumption,
accident cost, etc.
3. 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.
4. Accident analysis and reduction:- looks at the
causes of accidents, from the perspective of
human, road, and vehicle and formulate plans
for the reduction.
5. Intelligent transport system:- offers better
mobility, efficiency, and safety with the help of the
state-of-the-art-technology such as
communication.
4. Modes of Transportation
 Transportation mode is the way in which passengers or
goods can be transported.

Classification of transportation modes

I. Traditional Mode of Transportation (TMT)
 non wheeled
 Walking
 Human porterage
 Pack animals
 Cattle on hoofs
II. Intermediate Mode of Transportation (IMT)
 Wheeled but not motorized
 Animal carts
 Wheel barrows
 Bicycles
III. Conventional Mode of Transportation (CMT)
 Railways
 Roads Land Transport Modes
 Pipeline
 Maritime - water transport
 Aviation - air transport
 Lift/elevators, escalators, conveyors
IV. Multimodal Transportation – Intermodal
 Combination of modes
 Multimodal Transportation Operator (MTO)
 Integrated Logistics operation – Supply Chain Management
System
V. Exotic transport modes
 Hover crafts/hydrofoils/land-water service
 Space transport
Example of multimodal transportation
 Road transportation
 infrastructures are large consumers of space
 the lowest level of physical constraints among
transportation modes
additional costs to overcome features such as rivers
or rugged terrain
high maintenance costs, both for the vehicles and
infrastructures
average operational flexibility
 Rail transportation
composed of traced paths + vehicles
average level of physical constrains linked to other
modes
a low gradient is required particularly for freight
Linked to heavy industries
highest capacity among land transportation
offering the with a 23,000 tons of coal
• Pipelines
 on land or under water
 low physical constraints while operation
 construction costs vary according to the
diameter and increase proportionally with the
distance and with the viscosity of fluids
 Maritime transportation
 the most effective mode to move large quantities
of cargo over long distances
 routes are composed of oceans, coasts, seas, lakes,
rivers and channels
 high terminal costs
 High inventory costs
 more linked to heavy industries; steel and
petrochemical
 Air transportation
 unlimited routes
 the long distance mobility of people
 constraints include
 the site (a commercial plane needs about 3,300
meters of runway for landing and takeoff)
 the climate
 fog and
 aerial currents
 Nowadays
 high value and quantity of freight
 better global logistics
 Intermodal transportation
combination of various modes under several
contract.
Could be cheaper.
 mostly for passengers – interconnected public
transit
 Freight – containerization – between land and water
transportation
• Multimodal transportation
 Combination of more than one mode under single
contract.
 Could be faster and easy.
Modes versus components
Modal Components Road Railways Maritime Aviation Pipeline

1. Infrastructure
 Links/network
Roads Tracks Routes Routes Pipes
 Terminals
Stations Stations Seaports Airports Terminals

1. Vehicle
 Passenger seats
Buses Train Ship Air crafts Pipeline
 Freight space
Trucks Wagons Ship Air crafts

1. Control system
 Physical
Signs & Signs & Buoys/light Signs/traffic -
 Legal
signals signals houses controls
Regulation
Regulation Regulation Regulation Regulation
 Nature in Technological and Economic Characteristics of Modes
Criteria Highways Railways Waterways Airways Pipelines
Terminal Cost Lowest High High Highest Low
Line Cost Higher High Lowest Low
Capacity ton Small Large Highest Smallest High
Speed km/km Higher Low Lowest Highest High
Cost/ton/km High Low Cheapest Highest Lowest
Specialization (goods) All type All type All type valuables Liquid
Dev`t impact along
route Good Good Nill Nill Nill
Investment High-low High High Varies High
Technological Latitude Fixed Latitude Fixed
Distance 300-400km >400km Lowest Longest -
Flexibility of direction Best Less Least
Capacity: passenger 100 Up to 500
Freight MT 40 1000 500,000 50 -
Speed 50-100 50-250 20-50 500-1000 5-10
Energy Consumption 4 3 2 5 1
 5. Role of transportation in society
• Economic role of transportation
facilitates industry, expands trade, encourages
productive forces
foreign exchange and intensive international
competition
It affects Passengers work productivity
• Social role of transportation
 Growth of Urban Centers
 Size, formation and Pattern of Settlement
Environmental role of transportation
• Safety
• Air Pollution
• Noise pollution
• Energy consumption
• Natural resource consumption and land use
Other impacts
• Aesthetics
• social life and social pattern
 Four critical dimensions of change in
transportation system

Change in the demand

Changes in the technology
Change in operational policy
Change in values of the public
Factors in transportation development
 Economic
 Geographical
 Political Polices
 Military
 Technological
 Competition
 Urbanization
6. Brief History of Transportation
 Reading Assignment on transportation
development
 Worldwide
 African context
 Ethiopian context

Any questions?