2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Investigating the Inclusion of Traffic Operations Concepts in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Curricula

Presented at Committee on Educational Policy Presents: Pillars of Our Curriculum

Transportation engineering education has been a topic of interest for researchers in recent decades. Existing surveys of transportation engineering education focus largely on the introductory transportation engineering course and does not consider the extent to which different focus areas are covered in those courses. Traffic operations is a critical focus area within transportation engineering and is considered a focus area of the field by industry professionals and educators alike. Thus, investigation into traffic operations is covered in introductory and secondary courses across different instructors and universities is essential to gaining insight into the current state of transportation engineering education. This paper documents the results of a survey of how traffic operations concepts are integrated into undergraduate level civil engineering curricula in the United States and how these topics are taught. A survey was distributed to faculty at universities with civil engineering programs across the United States. The survey responses reveal concepts related to traffic operations are covered in a large majority of introductory transportation courses and many universities offer a secondary course covering concepts related to traffic operations. The survey also reveals that, while most instructors utilize active learning strategies in their classrooms, there is little collaborative effort that goes into developing these strategies. These findings warrant further investigation into the benefits that could accompany collaborative development of active learning strategies.

Authors

Dr. Rebeka Yocum http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1461-2756 Oregon Institute of Technology
Dr. Vikash Gayah Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Dr. Vikash V. Gayah is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University (joined 2012). He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Central Florida (2005 and 2006, respectively) and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley (2012). Dr. Gayah’s research focuses on urban mobility, traffic operations, traffic flow theory, traffic safety and public transportation. His research approach includes a combination of analytical models, micro-simulations and empirical analysis of transportation data. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, over 50 refereed conference proceedings, and numerous research reports to sponsors. He has worked on research contracts valued at more than $5 million, sponsored by the Pennsylvania, Washington State, Montana and South Dakota Departments of Transportation, US Department of Transportation (via the Mineta National Transit Research Consortium and the Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center), Federal Highway Administration, National Cooperative Highway Research Program and National Science Foundation.

Dr. Gayah currently serves as an editorial advisory board member of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, an editorial board editor of Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, an associate editor for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine (an international peer-reviewed journal), a handling editor for the Transportation Research Record and is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics (AHB 45), where he serves as a paper review coordinator. He has been recognized with multiple awards for his research and teaching activities, including the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship, Gordon F. Newell Award for Excellence in Transportation Science, University of California Transportation Center Student of the Year Award, New Faculty Award by the Council of University Transportation Centers, the Cunard, Fred Burggraf and D. Grant Mickle outstanding paper awards by the Transportation Research Board, Harry West Teaching Award by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State, Outstanding Teaching Award by the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society, and Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award by the National Science Foundation.

Download paper (1.14 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session