CE 56700 – Advanced Traffic and Safety Analyses

Credits and contact hours:

  • 3 credits
  • Lecture meets 3 times per week for 50 minutes per meeting for 15 weeks

Specific course information:

  • Catalog description: The course covers common traffic and safety studies including traffic generation, parking demand, capacity and quality of traffic, control and geometry improvements, hazard and countermeasures identification, and before-and-after studies. The course teaches also about data collection and existing data sources. A real-world project gives an opportunity to learn and practice computer tools for highway evaluation and design (HCS2010, SYNCHRO, RoadHAT).
  • Prerequisites: CE 46300 or CE565, or equivalent
  • Course status: Technical elective

Specific Goals for the course:

  • Student learning outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course the student shall be able to:
    • Supervise and conduct complex studies involving planning, design, and traffic operations issues,
    • Supervise and conduct highway safety management tasks,
    • Use advanced highway transportation tools in an efficient and adequate manner,
    • Make reasonable assumptions to fill gaps in the available data and the existing methods,
    • Design and perform data collection and other efforts adequate to the project needs,
    • Communicate efficiently within and outside the project team.
  •  Relationship of course to program outcomes
    • Outcome 1: An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics.
    • Outcome 5: An ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives.

Topics:

  • TRAFFIC IMPACT STUDIES
    • Introduction, Traffic Forecast in TIS, Transportation Data, Traffic distribution and assignment
  • OTHER TRAFFIC STUDIES
    • Traffic Volume Studies, Parking Studies, Speed, Travel Time, and Delay Studies
  • TRAFFIC CONTROL
    • Traffic Control Basics, Introduction to Traffic Signals, Traffic Signals Design Elements, Highway Capacity Manual, Unsignalized Intersections, Signalized Intersections
  • BASICS OF TRAFFIC SAFETY
    • Road Safety and Its Measurement, Safety Performance Functions, Empirical Bayes Method, Estimating Crash Frequency and Cost
  • TRAFFIC SAFETY MANAGEMENT
    • Road Network Screening, Road Safety Audits, Selecting Safety Projects, Before-after Studies, Estimating CRFs/CMFs, Human Behavior and New Concept of Safe Roads
  • TRAFFIC CONFLICTS TECHNIQUE
    • Introduction to Traffic Conflicts, Current Practice, Modern Technique, Estimating the Expected Number of Crashes, Example Driving Simulator Study, Application to Autonomous Vehicles and Safety Management