Sustainable Transportation Systems Design

Catalog description

Senior-level design course in transportation, with a focus on design of sustainable transportation systems. The perspective in the course is one of system design, i.e., understanding the process of creating objectives, developing alternative designs and having models capable of representing the interactions among major elements of the overall system. We will also adopt a sustainable development or triple bottom line perspective, taking into account ecological and social as well as economic dimensions of transportation systems design. From this perspective, efficient transportation function achieves the economic objective, while quantifying and minimizing negative impacts addresses ecological and social goals. The interactions among the major system elements (vehicles, infrastructure, people, freight) occurs on networks, and we need to focus on how networks function. We will also study how resources are allocated and how capacity is maintained in networks. Systems design is examined from both a public sector perspective and from a private sector perspective.