The interdisciplinary curriculum in transportation engineering is supported by faculty from nearly ten schools and departments. The following are brief descriptions of the course offerings.

School of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Transportation Engineering Courses

  • CIVE 3633: Transportation Engineering

    • Planning, design, and operations of transportation facilities. Vehicle characteristics and human factors in design. Traffic stream variables and their measurement techniques. Basic traffic flow models. Highway capacity and level of service. Transportation systems management. Prerequisite: CIVE 3613.

  • CIVE 5303: Systems Analysis for Civil Engineers

    • Synthesis of systems modeling and simulation techniques, mathematical optimization procedures, and evaluation tools including utility theory and decision analysis. Applications of mathematical optimization techniques in the areas of resource allocation, transportation and water resources systems planning, structural design, construction management, and environmental and ecological problems. Prerequisite: Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5313: Highway Traffic Operations

    • Level of service, capacity, and service volume concepts. Operational characteristics of uninterrupted-flow facilities. The HCM procedures for capacity analysis of freeways, multilane highways and two-lane highways. Highway capacity software. Administrative and planning actions for congestion management. Alternative strategies for improving traffic operations of highway facilities. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5323: Transportation Engineering Studies

    • Use of field data in planning and design of transportation facilities. Data gathering techniques including manual, photologging, telemetry,inductance loops, and solid-state recording devices. Sources of errors and sample size considerations. Studies of traffic volume and headways; vehicle classification, weight,speed, and occupancy; origin-destination; accidents; parking; and goods movement. Data reduction and analysis procedures. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5333: Intersection Traffic Operations

    • Operational characteristics of interrupted-flow traffic facilities. The HCM procedures for capacity analysis of signalized and unsignalized street intersections, urban arterials, and transit and pedestrian facilities. Highway capacity software. Administrative and planning actions for congestion management. Design alternatives and improvement strategies for effective use of urban arterial street width. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5343: Urban Transportation Planning

    • The planning process and data requirements. Determinants of demand for transportation and demand forecasting. Performance characteristics of transportation systems. Quantitative analysis of multimodal transportation networks including prediction of flow patterns and service quality. Evaluation of social, economic, and environmental impacts of transportation decisions. Application of systems analysis techniques to the generation, evaluation, and selection of alternative transportation systems. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5353: Public Transportation Systems

    • Technological and operating characteristics of public transportation systems including express and local buses, commuter rail, light rail transit, taxi and other paratransit services. Transit service performance measures. Planning of transit routes and systems. Design of transit stations, park-and-ride facilities and transit rights-of-way. Financing, management, marketing and public policy issues. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5363: Planning & Design of Airports

    • Nature of civil aviation. Aircraft characteristics and performance related to airport planning and design. Air traffic control. Basics of airport planning and airport demand forecasting. Analysis of airport airside capacity and delays. Runway length requirements. Configuration and geometric design of runways, taxiways, aprons, and terminal facilities. Airport lighting, marking, and signing. Drainage and noise control. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5373: Design of Traffic Control Systems

    • Technological control options and range of agency needs. Design of vehicle detectors, signal display, controllers, wiring, and communication links. Development of timing plans. Computer simulation models. Freeway surveillance and control: ramp metering, incident detection and management, and motorist information systems. Preparation of contractual documents and construction supervision. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5383: Geometric Design of Highways

    • Geometric, functional, and aesthetic aspects of roadway design. Design controls and criteria, alignment, and cross- section elements. Design of freeways, arterials, collectors, local streets, at-grade intersections and interchanges. Design tools and techniques. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5393: Intelligent Transportation Systems

    • Introduction to ITS technologies and services including traffic management systems, public transportation management systems, electronic payment systems, regional multi-modal traveler information systems, emergency response systems, commercial vehicle operations management systems, and advanced vehicle control and safety systems. Overview of the national ITS architecture, standards and protocols. ITS deployment case studies. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, CIVE 5313, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5643: Pavement Evaluation & Rehabilitation

    • State-of-the-art pavement evaluation procedures and rehabilitation techniques. Field and laboratory methods of evaluating in-situ pavement performance. Rehabilitation techniques including resurfacing, recycling, reconstruction, and restoration. Selection of the most feasible rehabilitation method based on life-cycle costs. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5653: Asphalt Materials & Mix Design

    • Principles of asphalt concrete mix design including materials characteristics and performance.  Evaluation of Hveem, Marshall and SHARP mix design methods. Asphalt cements, ruberized and polymer asphalts, emulsions, cutbacks, and aggregates. Laboratory sessions focused on the engineering properties of the materials discussed. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5673: Concrete Materials & Mix Design

    • Principles of concrete mix design including material characteristics, strength and durability requirements, environmental effects and forensic analysis.  ACI and PCA mix design procedures.  Laboratory on theoretical and practical aspects of concrete technology. Prerequisite: Senior or graduate standing.

  • CIVE 5693: Pavement Design & Analysis

    • Principles of pavement design including stress analyses, load and environmental effects and material characteristics. AASHTO, PCA and AI methods of pavement design. Computer software and methods. Practical aspects of life-cycle cost analyses and construction methods. Prerequisite: CIVE 3633, Senior or graduate standing.

Transportation-Related Courses

  • CIVE 5133: Construction Contracts and Specifications

    • The nature of contracts and contract types, contract documents, master format. Principles of specification writing. The bidding process, bonds and insurance, subcontracting, disputes and disputes resolution. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

  • CIVE 5143: Project Engineering and Management

    • Management of the design and construction of civil engineering projects. Topics include owner's study, formation of project teams, design coordination, construction, and project closeout. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

  • CIVE 5163: Construction Equipment Management

    • Characteristics of construction equipment and their performance under various operating conditions. Application of engineering fundamentals to construction methods. Selection and costs of equipment. Prediction of equipment production rates, and unit costs of work in place. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

  • CIVE 5243: Use and Design of Geosynthetics

    • Typology of geosynthetics available for engineering uses. Pertinent engineering properties and basic design methodology of geosynthetics for various functions. Construction and performance considerations. Prerequisite: CIVE 3713, CIVE 4711 & Basic geology course.

  • CIVE 5263: Terrain Analysis

    • Prediction of geotechnical engineering characteristics of geological landforms from remote sensing imagery. Photographic stereo interpolation and applications of this media to land-use planning and environmental problems. Prerequisite: Basic courses in soil mechanics and geology.

  • CIVE 5543: Bridge Design

    • Structural design of steel and concrete highway bridges, including bridge types, loads and load distribution, analysis and design of bridge components, and bridge rating. Prerequisite: CIVE 3513 and CIVE 3523.

  • CIVE 5753: Engineering Soil Stabilization

    • Theoretical and practical aspects of engineering soil stabilization method for improving and upgrading low quality and unstable soils for engineering purposes. Use of lime, fly ash, portland cement, asphalt, and other physical and chemical admixtures. Application of deep foundation stabilization methods such as preloading, deep compaction, injection, and reinforcement. Prerequisite: CIVE 3713 and CIVE 4711.

  • CIVE 5823: Environmental Risk Assessment and Management

    • Application of probability & statistics and computer simulation to determine the public health and ecological risks from human activities. Prerequisite: STAT 4033.

  • CIVE 5873: Air Pollution Control Engineering

    • Causes, effects and control of atmospheric pollution.

School of Industrial Engineering & Management

  • IEM 4014: Operations Research

    • Fundamental methods, models, and computational techniques of operations research. Linear programming including transportation and assignment models. Network models, dynamic programming, decision theory, and queuing theory. Prerequisite: IEM 3703, MATH 3263 and STAT 4033.

  • IEM 4023: Operations Research II

    • Continued study of the fundamental methods of operations research; computational techniques on nonlinear programming, dynamic programming, inventory theory and analysis, queuing theory and analysis and simulation. Prerequisite: MATH 2233, STAT 4033 and FORTRAN.

  • IEM 4713: System Simulation

    • Simulation of discrete-event systems. Problem formulation, translation to a computer model, and use of a model for problem solution. Simulation concepts and theory including random variable selection and generation, model validation and statistical analysis of results. Use of GPSS and survey of other languages and related simulation tools. Prerequisite: IEM 4014, STAT 4033.

  • IEM 5033: Dynamic Programming

    • An introduction to dynamic programming. Formulating dynamic programming problems, computational techniques, control problems, and Markov decision problems. Applications to production control, transportation, inventory theory, and other areas. Prerequisite: IEM 5013 and STAT 4213 or equivalent

  • IEM 5113: Total Quality Management

    • Major categories of criteria for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, including leadership, information and analysis, strategic quality planning, human resource utilization, quality assurance, results and customer satisfaction. Key concepts and tools, customer requirements determination, customer satisfaction measurement, cost of quality, quality planning, supplier relations, process improvement strategy, causes of variation, process stability and control, process capability, the use of SPC tools, and measures of performance. Emphasis on those activities that outstanding companies do well. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

  • IEM 5133: Stochastic Processes

    • Definition of stochastic processes, probability structure, mean and covariance function, the set of sample functions. Renewal processes, counting processes, Markov chains, birth and death processes, stationary processes and their spectral analyses. Prerequisite: MATH 2233, MATH 3013 and STAT 4113.

  • IEM 5643: Network Modeling and Analysis

    • Network approach to modeling and analysis of complex systems. Deterministic and stochastic network topics include PERT, CPM, decision trees, network flows, flowgraphs, and GERT (Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique). Modeling of practical problems. Systems analysis using network techniques and available computer programs. Prerequisite: IEM 4014 and IEM 5003.

  • IEM 5803: Human Factors Engineering

    • Basic considerations of the human factors in engineering systems with emphasis on the interface of man-machine systems. Development of human abilities and limitations in relation to equipment designs and work environments. Prerequisite: IEM 4823 and IEM 4113 or equivalent.

  • IEM 5913: Decision-Making Models for Multi-objective Analysis

    • Quantitative and qualitative aspects of multiple-criteria decision making. Dynamics of the decision process are examined and the multi-objective nature of most managerial decision problems is illustrated. General concepts and solution methodologies of the multi-objective problem. Multi-objective linear programming, goal programming, and compromise programming. Attribute importance, risk measurement, and utility measurement. Prerequisite: IEM 4014.

School of Electrical & Computer Engineering

  • ICEN 4523: Communication Theory

    • Noise and modulation systems. Digital data transmission. Design of optimal receivers. Introduction to information theory. Prerequisite: ICEN 3513

  • ICEN 5293: Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems

    • Fundamental concepts: search oriented problem solving, knowledge representation, logical interface building. An expert system, artificial intelligence languages, specialized machine architecture. Applications to planning, natural language processing, and robotics. Development of an expert system or research effort required. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

  • ICEN 5543: Data Transportation and Protection

    • Data and their presentation; finite field matrices, pseusorandom sequences; information protection; space division networks; synchronization; and channel and error control. Prerequisite: None.

  • ICEN 5553: Telecommunications Systems

    • Ways and means voice, data, and video traffic is moved long distances. Data networks (ethernet and token ring local area networks; FDDI and SMDS Metropolitan area networks; internet, frame relay, and ATM wide area networks); the telephone system (POTs, network synchronization and switching, ISDN, SONET, cellular telephone); and video (NTSC, switching and timing, compressed video standards such as MPEG and PX64, HDTV). Prerequisite: Graduate standing

  • ICEN 5643: Wireless Communications

    • Aspects of radiowave propagation for fixed and mobile communication systems. Review of Maxwell's equations and plane wave propagation, antenna principles. Reflection, refraction, diffraction, fading and scintillation, attenuation, ducting, diversity. Propagation in a cellular environment. Satellite communications. Prerequisite: ICEN 3613 and ICEN 4503.

  • ICEN 5733: Neural Networks

    • Introduction to mathematical analysis of networks and learning rules. Application of neural networks to certain engineering problems in signal and image processing and control systems. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

  • ICEN 5773: Intelligent Systems

    • Introduction to the state-of-the-art intelligent control and system successfully deployed to industrial and defense applications. Emerging intelligent algorithms (e.g., NN, FS, GA, EP, DES); intelligent control architecture (e.g., bottom-up, top-down, seminotics); reinforcement learning and hybrid systems; and case studies and design projects. Prerequisite: ICEN 5733 or MAE 5773.

  • ICEN 5833: Fiber-Optic Communication Systems

    • Five generations of fiber-optic communication systems described in detail. Technical advances and increased capability of each system. Historical framework of how technical capability at the time forced technical decisions. A systems engineering point of view, emphasizing optimization of all components of the optical fiber link. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Department of Geography

  • GEOG 4123: Geographic Aspects of Urban Planning

    • Spatial aspects of urban planning: development of planning theory, various planning tools, and specific problem areas such as urban renewal and urban transportation. Prerequisite: GEOG 3123

  • GEOG 4333: Remote Sensing

    • Use of several types of sensors and imagery in solving problems. LANDSAT imagery use. Uses and limitations of data extraction techniques, manual and computer-assisted. Applications to a variety of specific problems. Prerequisite: Junior standing.

  • GEOG 4343: Geographic Information Systems: Resource Management

    • Theory and principles of geographic information systems (GIS) applied to resource management problems using both raster and vector data structures. GIs and remote sensing integration. Prerequisite: GEOG 2343 or GEOG 4333 or Consent of instructor.

  • GEOG 4353: Geographic Information Systems: Socioeconomic Applications

    • Theory and principles of geographic information systems (GIs) applied to socioeconomic problems including location-alocation, market area determination, network analysis, and analysis of demographic characteristics. Prerequisite: GEOG 2343 or GEOG 4323 or Consent of instructor.

Department of Economics

  • ECON 3113: Intermediate Microeconomics

    • How the market system organizes economic activity and an evaluation of its performance. Principles of price theory developed and applied to the interactions of consumers. Procedures and resource owners in markets characterized by different degrees of competition. Prerequisite: ECON 2203

  • ECON 4213: Econometric Methods

    • Basic quantitative methods used in economic analysis emphasizing applications to economic problems and interpretation of empirical results. Statistical analyses, regression and forecasting techniques using computer programs. Prerequisite: ECON 2203 and STAT 3013 or STAT 4013.

  • ECON 4223: Business and Economic Forecasting

    • Forecasting business and economic variables. Regression models and time series models such as exponential smoothing models, seasonal models and Box-Jenkins models. Evaluation of methods and forecasting accuracy. Applications of methods using computer programs. Prerequisite: ECON 2203 and STAT 3013 or STAT 4013.

  • ECON 5123: Macroeconomics Theory I

    • Contemporary price and allocation theory with emphasis on comparative statics. Prerequisite: ECON 3113 and MATH 2265 or MATH 2713.

Department of Statistics

  • STAT 4033: Engineering Statistics

    • Introduction to probability, random variables, probability distributions, estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and linear regression. Prerequisite: MATH 2155

  • STAT 4043: Applied Regression Analysis

    • Matrix algebra, simple linear regression, residual analysis techniques, multiple regression, dummy variables. Prerequisite: STAT 4013, STAT 4033 and STAT 5013 or equivalent.

  • STAT 4223: Statistical Inference

    • Sampling distributions, point estimation, maximum likelihood methods, Rao-Cramer inequality, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, sufficiency, completeness. Prerequisite: STAT 4113 and MATH 3013.

  • STAT 5013: Statistics for Experimenters I

    • Introductory statistics course for graduate students. Descriptive statistics, basic probability, probability distributions, fundamentals of statistical inference, hypothesis testing, regression, one-way classification, analysis of variance, comparative experiments, correlation and linear regression, introduction to categorical data analysis. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and MATH 1513.

  • STAT 5023: Statistics for Experimenters II

    • Analysis of variance, covariance, use of variance components and their estimation, completely randomized, randomized block and Latin square designs, multiple comparisons. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and STAT 4023 or STAT 5013.

  • STAT 5033: Nonparametric Methods

    • A continuation of STAT 4013 and 4023, concentration on nonparametric methods. Alternatives to normal-theory statistical methods; analysis of categorical and ordinal data, methods based on rank transforms, measures of association, goodness of fit tests, order statistics. Prerequisite: One of STAT 4023, STAT 4043, STAT 5023 or consent of instructor.

  • STAT 5043: Sample Survey Designs

    • Constructing and analyzing personal, telephone and mail surveys. Descriptive surveys including simple random, stratified random designs. Questionnaire design frame construction, non-sampling errors, use of random number tables, sample size estimation and other topics related to practical conduct of surveys. Prerequisite: One of STAT 4013, STAT 4033, STAT 5013 or consent of instructor.

Department of Political Science

  • POLS 3493: Public Policy

    • Identification of policy options open to policy makers and examination of measurements and rationales underlying governmental programs. Prerequisite: One of POLS 1013, 2033, 2113, ECON 1113, 2123, SOC 1113, or PHIL 2113.

  • POLS 5223: Urban Politics and Management

    • Introduction to the concepts, processes, and techniques of managing urban political systems to include problems of leadership, decision making, general management, and group behavior.

Department of Management

  • MGMT 5113: Management and Organization Theory

    • Contemporary theories of organization. Structure and dynamics of organizational goals and environments. Prerequisite: Admission to MBA program or consent of MBA director.

  • MGMT 5553: Management of Technology and Innovation

    • Business applications of research, practice, and theory of management of technology and innovation. To improve the effectiveness by which technologies are developed, implemented and institutionalized. Emphasizes both management with advanced technologies and strategic management of technology. Prerequisite: MBA core courses or consent of instructor.

  • MSIS 4013: Data Base Management

    • Theoretical aspects and management applications of data bases. File organization and data models, with emphasis on hierarchical network and relational structures. Discussion of storage devices, data base administration, and the analysis, design and implementation of data base management systems. Prerequisite: MSIS 2103 or equivalent.

  • MSIS 4523: Data Communication Systems

    • Management orientation to decisions necessary in the design, implementation and control of data communications. Transmission service and equipment characteristics, network design principles, data communication software and federal regulatory policy affecting data communication. Prerequisite: MSIS 3303.

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