Lecture No.

1 – Introduction to Transportation Engineering

Holy Angel University
School of Engineering and Architecture
Department of Civil Engineering

Introduction to Transportation Engineering

Lecture No. 1 – Introduction to Transportation Engineering

Objective This lecture aims to introduce the different concepts and

terms that are needed to understand transportation

engineering in a more detailed manner. The basic

terminologies will be defined and explained thoroughly to

students to strengthen their foundation in understanding

transportation engineering in general.

Content  Transportation Engineering

 Government Activity in Transportation
 Administrative Structure and Finance

Lecture No. 1 – Introduction to Transportation Engineering

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Lecture No. 1 – Introduction to Transportation Engineering

1.1 Transportation Engineering

Transportation is
1. All about moving goods and people from one place to another.
2. Safe, efficient, reliable, and sustainable movement of persons and goods over time and
space.

Transportation Engineering is the application of technology and scientific principles to the

planning, functional design, operation, and management of facilities for any mode of
transportation in order to provide for the safe, rapid, comfortable, convenient, economical, and
environmentally compatible movement of people and goods.

Transportation Engineering...
Focuses on the infrastructure of transportation
Design runways, build bridges, layout roads and plan docking facilities
Look at traffic patterns, determine when new transport facilities are needed and come up
with better ways
Application of technology and scientific principles to the planning, functional design,
operation, and
Management of facilities

1.2 Traffic Engineering is that phase of transportation engineering which deals with the
planning, geometric design and traffic operations of roads, streets, and highways, their
networks, terminals, abutting lands, and relationships with other modes of transportation.

Primary Objectives
1. The principal objective of traffic engineering is to provide a safe system for road traffic
including pedestrians and bicycles.
2. Provision of efficient management & operations of road transport network
3. Other objectives can be:
– Sustainability
– Environmental impacts
– Comfort & convenience of the user
– Economy

1.3 Modes of Transportation

1. By Land
o Railways
- Surface
- Underground
- Elevated
- Light rail transit (LRT)
o Road Transport
2. By Air
o Air Transport
3. By Water
o Water Transport

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1.4 History of transportation engineering

1. Humans had migrated by their feet
2. Use domesticated animals to carry goods
3. Built machines and devices, like sleds and travois, to help them carry more.
4. Establishing trading routes
5. Well-used paths became more and more permanent.
6. These paths became the first roads
7. Maintain the roads and look at ways in which they could be made easier to travel
8. The first transportation engineers.

1.5 Four critical dimensions of change in transportation system

o Change in values of the public
o Changes in the technology
o Change in operational policy
o Change in the demand

1.6 Components of the Traffic Systems

1. Vehicular Traffic - Cars, Buses, Trucks, Taxis...
2. Road Conditions - Motorway, Highway, Urban Arterial, Rural roads ...
3. Driver Characteristics - Young, Drunk, Experienced, Learner’s License ...
4. Environmental Conditions - Rainy, Sunny, Foggy, Night-time conditions ...
5. Control Devices - Signalised/Unsignalised ...

1.7 The characteristics of transportation System

1. Multi-disciplinary
2. Multi-sector
3. Multi-problem
4. Multi-objective
5. Multi-modal

1.8 Elements of a transportation system

1. Infrastructure: which includes Road, canal, rail, air Transfer points Supporting elements
(signs, signals, safety)
2. Vehicles: which includes Planes, trains, autos, buses, ships, trucks
3. Operators/Content : which includes Drivers, pilots, freight, passengers

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1.9 Role of transportation in society

1. Economic role of transportation

- Transportation contributes two kinds of utilities (place and time utility)
The value of goods depends on where they are and when they are there.
Major conclusion about the economic role of transportation systems
= adequate transportation infrastructure is necessary for high level of economic activity to exist.
= most transportation is not undertaken by its own sake (though some take it for pleasure),
but is what referred to as Secondary Goods/secondary service, whose values depends on the
value of goods transported or the services performed by passengers at their destinations.
2. Social role of transportation
o Growth of Urban Centers
o Size and Pattern of Settlement
o Formation of settlements
3. Environmental role of transportation
o Safety
o Air Pollution
o Noise pollution
o Energy consumption
4. Other impacts
o Aesthetics
o social life and social pattern

1.10 Major disciplines of transportation

1. Transportation Planning
- involves the development of a transport model

2. Geometric Design
- Deals with physical proportioning of other transportation facilities
o Cross-sectional features,
o Horizontal alignment,
o Vertical alignment and
o Intersections
3. Pavement Design
- Deals with the structural design of roads, both (bituminous and concrete)
o Drainage design
o Functional design
o Structural design
4. Traffic Engineering
- covers a broad range of engineering applications with a focus on
o The safety of the public,
o The efficient use of transportation resources, and
o The mobility of people and goods.

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1.11 Additional disciplines of transportation

1. Public transportation
- study of the transportation system that meets the travel need of several people by sharing a
vehicle.
o characteristics of various modes;
o planning,
o management and operations; and
o policies for promoting public transportation.
2. Financial and economic analysis
- tries to quantify the economic benefit which includes saving in travel time, fuel consumption,
etc.
3. Environmental impact assessment
- attempts in quantifying the environmental impacts and tries to evolve strategies for the
mitigation and reduction of the impact due to both construction and operation.
4. Accident analysis and reduction
- looks at the causes of accidents, from the perspective of human, road, and vehicle and
formulate plans for the reduction.
5. Intelligent transport system
- offers better mobility, efficiency, and safety with the help of the state-of-the-art technology

1.12 Factors in Transportation Development

1. Economic Factors
2. Geographical Factor
3. Political Polices
4. Military
5. Technological Factor
6. Urbanization
7. Competition

1.13 Effectiveness of the Transportation Modes

1. Accessibility – refers to the cost of getting to and from the mode in question, and depends
primarily on geographical extensiveness.
a. Highway system – all individual property have direct access to a public road
b. Water transportation – a direct access is possible only at port facilities located on the
banks of navigable rivers, canals, or the seacoast.
2. Mobility – is described in terms of speed or travel time.
3. Productivity – refers to some measure of the total amount of transportation provided per unit
time. Amount of transportation is usually thought of as the product of the volume of the goods or
passengers carried and distance. (tons-miles per year or passenger-kilometers per day)
Costs – are described in terms of capital costs and operating costs.
Capital cost – are those of major items that must be purchased before an enterprise can
function.
As with transportation, capital costs are usually thought of as including (1) right-of-way costs
(for the transportation facilities) (2) construction costs of the facilities, and (3) costs of acquiring
vehicles and other equipment.

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Operating Costs – are the day-to-day expenditures involved in carrying out the enterprise, and
are usually thought of as including the costs of labor, fuel, expendable parts such as tires or
batteries for vehicles, and the maintenance of facilities and equipment.
Markets – are described in terms of the extent to which the mode in question carries passengers
or freight.
1.14 Classifications of Passenger Markets
1. Urban Travel – within a single urban area or
2. Intercity Travel – between urban areas
3. Intercity Markets – depends on the trips either short (less than 160 km),
medium (160 – 800 km) and long trips (greater than 800 km)

Mode Classification Scheme

FREIGHT PASSENGER
URBAN Truck Private
(highways) Auto
(highways)
Transit
(highways
or rails)
INTERCITY Truck Private
(highways) Auto
Rail (highways)
Ocean Bus
Shipping (highways)
Inland Rail
water Air
Pipeline
Air
Special Conveyor
Purpose Belt
Cable
Systems

Highway System – the dominant transportation

- In addition to private vehicles, the highway system is used by truck lines and
bus lines.
1.15 Major service characteristics of the Highway System
1. High accessibility to almost all potential destinations.
2. Direct service with a very low door-to-door travel times
3. Moderate line-haul speeds
4. Moderate capacities

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Capital Cost – for physical facilities vary a great deal depending on the type and capacity of
roadway, but on the whole are moderate.
Vehicles – are relatively small, and hence individual vehicles tend to be cheaper and more
readily available than for most other modes.
Operating Costs – tends to be relatively high due to total investments in vehicles and facilities
Operating private passenger vehicle id often lower than that of competing public passenger
modes.
Environmental Impacts of the system as a whole is high, and are a major social concern,
particularly in the case of Air Pollution.

Urban Transit – highly specialized mode.

- Includes traditional mass transit modes such as buses, streetcars, and light rail
and rail rapid transit, as well as paratransit modes such as jeepneys and
tricycles.
Two groups of transit passenger
1. Commuters or Choice Riders – persons making work trips into dense central business
districts.
2. Captive Riders – those without access to automobiles.

1.16 Air Transportation System – includes commercial airlines, airfreight, carriers, and general
aviation (private aircrafts).
Major Market is intercity passenger travel, particularly long-distance travel.
The primary service characteristics of air transportation
1. High line-haul speed
2. Accessibility is limited – less important due to great length of most trips made by air.
3. Capacities of Individual aircrafts are moderate, but productivity is high due to the very
high speeds
Capital and operating costs are both quite high for the commercial air system, but once again,
high productivity results in moderate costs per passenger carried.
Costs of general aviation airports and aircraft are moderate and are usually in the same range
as those of highway facilities and vehicles of comparable capacity.
Environmental Impacts – are significant especially the noise impacts of commercial aviation,
but are of much less concern than those of the highway system.

1.17 Water transportation System – consists of coastwise ocean shipping and barge lines
operating on inlang waterways.
- Provides low speed and relatively low accessibility, but extremely high
capacities.
Capital costs of vessels is high, but operating costs per ton-mile are extremely low.
Environmental Impacts – are relatively low but water pollution from routine discharges of oil
and other pollutants, as well as from major oil spills involving tankers, is a significant problem.

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1.18 Pipelines – constitute a highly specialized freight transportation system.

- Markets is almost entirely crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas.
- They provide very low-speed, high-capacity continuous flow transportation,
and involve large amount of working storage.
- Costs are low.

Capital costs for the pipeline, pumping stations, and the like account for 70 to 80% of the total
costs; operating costs are very low and depend mostly on pumping costs.
Environmental Impacts of pipelines is normally quite low once they are built, but construction
impacts have sometimes been of major concern.

1.19 Other modes

Cable and belt system – are used extensively for transportation of freight within industrial
complexes.
- Are used for specialized passenger transportation systems such as ski lifts and
moving belts in airports.

1.20 The System for Financing Transportation (sources of funds)

1. User Charges – include direct charges such as fares and toll and, more importantly, indirect sources
such as fuel taxes. Major share of the financing comes from the users and some degree proportional
to the extent of their use of the system.
2. General Fund Revenues – collected by the different level of government are derived from regular
taxes. The General fund has no particular relationship between the source of funds and the activity
on which they are spent.
3. Private Investments – occurs in the parts of the transportation system that are normally under
private control and in cases where public agencies issue franchises, as in the case of toll facilities,
or purchase services under contract.
4. Cross-subsidization – occurs when revenues collected from users of one type of transportation
system are used to finance some other type of system. A common example in recent years has
been the use of gasoline tax revenues and bridge tolls to finance public transits.

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