Since 2006 I have taught three courses at Northwestern University.
CIV_ENV 376: Transportation Systems Operations
The course introduces students to the principles of transportation engineering with a focus on highway engineering and traffic analysis. The course covers fundamental concepts and principles that guide road design, as well as the movement and control of vehicular traffic. Specifically, these include geometric design, traffic flow theory, highway capacity analysis, and traffic signal operations. The materials learned are intended to provide the basic skill set that will allow students to solve transportation problems that are likely to appear in professional practice and on the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (FE) and the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam (PE). The materials also serve as a foundation for future coursework in transportation. The course is designed for upper level undergraduate students and entry-level graduate students. syllabus_376
CIV_ENV 471-I: Transportation Systems Analysis I
This course introduces students to network analysis tools that form an important branch of transportation science. The course covers fundamental concepts and principles that guide urban travel forecasting and transportation system management/operations, with a focus on underlying optimization models and solution techniques. All problems concerned in this course are “static”, meaning that travel occurring during the analysis period is considered to be in the form of constant or static flows. “Dynamic” counterparts of these problems will be introduced in the sequel of this course. sylllabus471-I
CIV_ENV 471-II Transportation Systems Analysis II
This course extends transportation systems analysis to accommodate dynamics in travel demand and network flow and operation and design of urban transit systems. The primary objective is to introduce the students to the fundamental principles
and mathematical methods that guide these active areas of transportation research and practice. Students will be exposed to both the classic work and the latest developments in the filed, and
be encouraged to ask and address research questions of their own. The course has three pillars. The first is the simple and powerful economic model of morning commute problem, which endogenizes both departure time choice and traffic dynamics. The more general optimization approach that is built under the umbrella of dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) will also be reviewed and compared with the morning commute model. The main components of the DTA
approach, including basic traffic flow models, time-depending shortest path problems, and assignment models, constitute the second pillar of the course. The third pillar of the course is
principles for operating and designing urban transit systems.