Transportation and Infrastructure Systems Engineering
As a branch of civil engineering, transportation engineering has a history that is long and illustrious and a future that is full of promise. The National Academy of Engineering has identified restoring urban infrastructure and implementing smart mobility as grand challenges. We need coordinated approaches to tackle transportation issues by integrating car, rail, bus, truck, walking and bicycling to meet sustainability goals. Currently, we see how smartphones have enabled ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, while taxis and GPS-equipped cars and trucks are providing massive amounts of data that was unimaginable a few years back. Before long, it may be common to have vehicles are talking to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicles talking to each other (V2V). Traffic flow with automated vehicles is expected to be much safer and more efficient than with human drivers.
The journey to that future will be fascinating and challenging. The safe and efficient movement of people and goods relies on infrastructure. Highways, airports, railroads, waterways and pipelines need to be planned, designed, operated, and maintained. Purdue's Transportation and Infrastructure Systems Engineering faculty offer a wide range of classes, research facilities, and experiences. Their efforts will have noticeable impacts on challenges such as:
- Asset management
- Data acquisition and analytics
- Emergency response
- Energy
- Freight Transportation and Logistics
- Environment
- Smart Mobility
- Sustainability
- Urban infrastructure
The award-winning Purdue Student Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers introduces students to the transportation profession and fosters a close association of students with practicing engineers, educators from other institutions, and local and national chapters of ITE.
Spotlights
August 2, 2024
Professor Samuel Labi, together with CCE students Richard Ajagu and Jelin Sabu and ECE graduate student Sashank Modali, hosted the 2nd Annual AKS competition at the Purdue Grand Prix track in West Lafayette, IN, May 20-23, 2024.
July 24, 2024
Congratulations to the Purdue Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Traffic Bowl Team on winning the 2024 ITE International Collegiate Traffic Bowl Grand Championship! The traffic bowl is an annual competition among ITE student chapter teams, and uses transportation planning and engineering topics for the clues, questions and answers.
July 17, 2024
In honor of Prof. Jon Fricker on the second anniversary of his passing, our transportation and infrastructure systems graduate students unveiled a new fridge and microwave — donated by Prof. Sam Labi — in the grad office.
July 16, 2024
In one of the inaugural posts on Purdue's new research blog, Assistant Professor Ziran Wang discusses his recently published research comparing the centralized and decentralized variants of federated learning and their impacts on the privacy of user data.
June 26, 2024
CE grad student Mohammadhosein Pourgholamali received the Purdue University College of Engineering Outstanding MS Thesis Award for Spring 2024 for his thesis titled, "Robust design of electric charging infrastructure locations under travel demand uncertainty and driving range heterogeneity."
May 30, 2024
Nadia Gkritza, Professor of Civil Engineering and Agricultural and Biological Engineering, will join the 2024 cohort of the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) fellowship program at Drexel University.
May 14, 2024
Congratulations to the Purdue University Student Chapter of Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) for being selected to receive the 2024 Student Chapter Award. The Student Chapter award recognizes a chapter that has provided an exemplary experience for its members with robust programming and outstanding administration.
May 2, 2024
The Indiana Department of Transportation, Cummins, White Construction, and Purdue ceremoniously broke ground May 1 for a highway segment where Purdue engineers will test a system they designed to wirelessly provide power to a heavy-duty electric truck traveling at highway speeds.
April 10, 2024
CE grad student Deepak Benny received honorable mention for best student paper at the 65th international meeting of the Transportation Research Forum conference.
April 3, 2024
CE grad student Greg Brinster was selected as a 2024-2025 Institute of Transportation Engineers Indiana Section Edward J. Cox Memorial Transportation Scholarship Awardee. Greg was presented the award during the 2024 Purdue Road School.
April 3, 2024
CE undergrad David Kopp was selected as a 2024-2025 Institute of Transportation Engineers Indiana Section Edward J. Cox Memorial Transportation Scholarship Awardee. David was presented the award during the 2024 Purdue Road School.
March 29, 2024
At the “Crossroads of America,” Purdue engineers and the Indiana Department of Transportation are working to make it possible for electric vehicles ranging from tractor-trailers to passenger cars to wirelessly charge while driving on highways. Construction begins as soon as April 1 on a quarter-mile test bed on U.S. 231/U.S. 52 in West Lafayette that the team will use for testing how well a patent-pending system designed by Purdue engineers can provide power to a heavy-duty electric truck traveling at highway speeds.
March 11, 2024
This week more than 3,000 transportation professionals will gather in West Lafayette for the 110th annual Purdue Road School Transportation Conference and Expo.
March 7, 2024
Lyles School of Civil Engineering students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends joined thousands of other engineers at the annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting, held January 7-11 in Washington, D.C.
March 4, 2024
As the largest academic conference focused on the topic of sustainable transportation, the 4th IEEE Forum for Innovative Sustainable Transportation Systems (FISTS) took place in Riverside, California on Feb. 26th-28th, 2024. This year, Purdue CE played a crucial role in organizing this successful event
February 21, 2024
Through a partnership between Big Ten programs, Purdue University researchers are remote testing their autonomous vehicle from a state away.
January 31, 2024
Yiheng Feng, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Assistant Director of the Center for Road Safety (CRS), has received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to fund his research investigating the cybersecurity problem in next-generation transportation infrastructure.
January 18, 2024
CE grad student Ricardo Chahine was presented the Best Poster Award at the 103rd annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board for his poster titled, "Navigating post-pandemic urban mobility: Unveiling intentions for shared micro-mobility usage across three U.S. cities."
January 11, 2024
Kumares C. Sinha, the Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, has been named an Honorary Member by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the highest recognition of notable and outstanding professional achievement ITE presents to an individual.
November 29, 2023
CE graduate student Aishwarya Sharma received the best MS poster award at Purdue University's Computational Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs (CIGP) Fall 2023 Symposium, held November 19, 2023.
