Dr. Murphy P.

Mohammed
Associate Professor 5
 Introduction
Transportation engineering is the application of scientific
principles to the planning, design, operation, and management of
transportation system. Transportation has been one of the
essential components of the civil engineering profession since its
early days. From time immemorial, the building of roads, bridges,
pipelines, tunnels, canals, railroads, ports, and harbors has
shaped the profession and defined much of its public image. As
cities grew, civil engineers became involved in developing,
building, and operating transit facilities, including street railways
and elevated and underground systems. The role of civil engineers
in providing transportation infrastructure to accommodate a
growing population and economy was never more prominent
than in the United States around the late 19th century and the
early part of the 20th century.
 Transcontinental railroads, national highways, canals,
petroleum and natural gas pipelines, as well as major urban
transit systems, are testimonials to the achievement of civil
engineers. And, in the latter part of the last century, these
achievements played a major role in developing the Interstate
System, new rail transit lines, and major airports.
In the last 150 years, railroads, transit lines, ports, and
airports have helped to increase the range of cities and reduce the
isolation of rural areas. They have brought the nation closer
together.
Transportation as a Civil Engineering
Profession
Rapid urbanization of the United States challenged civil
engineers with the task of meeting the mobility needs in and
around cities. Civil engineers served not only as developers and
builders of transit facilities, but also as planners and operators of
such facilities.
An early intercity transportation engineering challenge was
the rapid development of canal systems and railroads during the
19th century. This development represented major challenges for
new and stronger bridges and for geometric design. The
importance of economic and environmental impacts of
transportation facilities became evident in these early
developments.
 As the nation became motorized in the 20th century, civil
engineers played a growing role in road construction. This
involvement has continued to the present day. In the 1920s
engineers played a role in preparing street and transit plans for
many communities. They were among the pioneers in applying
traffic engineering and management methods to streets and
highways.
After World War II, civil engineers’ involvement in
transportation projects increased dramatically as the Interstate
System was developed and as transportation planning became a
requirement for federal funds. However, while civil engineers were
increasingly involved in transportation activities, the
transportation engineer per se did not really emerge until the
United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) was
established in 1967 and state highway agencies became
multimodal ~
 At the beginning of the 2lst century, transportation
engineering has evolved into a mature sub-discipline within civil
engineering, with clear functions of planning, design,
construction, operation, and maintenance of multimodal systems
for the transportation of people and goods. With the rapid
development of Intelligent Transportation Systems ~ITS! in recent
years, the transportation engineering profession has also started
to make increasing use of information and communication
technologies.
 Transportation engineering, as it is practiced today, has
three major components. One component involves design,
construction, and maintenance of facilities, including roads,
bridges, tunnels, railroads, airports, transit systems, and ports and
harbors. The second component encompasses planning, project
development, and financing and management. The third
component covers operations and logistics, including traffic
engineering and operations of transit, trucking, and other
facilities, as well as business logistics.
Highway and Airport Pavement and
Materials
One hundred and fifty years ago, most roads between cities
were unpaved except for a few plank roads. The power stone
crusher (1858) and the steamroller (1859) made the use of crushed
stone feasible for rural roads. Cobblestones and untreated blocks
were used in cities. In the first decade of the 20th century,
portland cement concrete (PCC) Was introduced in Bellefontaine,
Ohio, and Wayne County, Michigan. The first theory of rigid
pavement was developed at this time, and has progressively
evolved since.
 Pavement Design
The stresses and deflections of flexible and rigid
pavements were analyzed using Boussinesq theory and
Westergaard theory as early as 1926. Among others, Yoder (1959)
pioneered the exploration of pavement design principles in the
1950s. However, a great surge of research activities and subsequent
practical applications took place in pavement design as a result of
the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO)
Road Test, which was conducted in Illinois from 1958 to 1960.
The Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP), in the
1980s, launched a major research activity in the area of pavements
and materials. As a part of this program, a comprehensive 20-year
study of in-service highway pavements (long-term pavement
performance, LTPP) was undertaken.
 Pavement Construction
A number of studies covered the issue of compaction of
graded aggregate bases and subbases. Benefits of the use of hot-
mix asphalt were investigated by several researchers. The
technique of non-fines concrete with single-sized coarse
aggregates held together by a binder consisting of a paste of
hydraulic cement and water was also discussed
 Materials and Testing
Along with pavement design procedures, investigations
were made on properties of new construction materials as well as
on recycled materials. Examples include engineering properties of
soil-lime mixes for stabilization, tensile fracture and fatigue of
cement-stabilized soil, low-temperature fracture parameters of
conventional asphalt concrete and asphalt-rubber mixture, field
studies on polymer-impregnated concrete, and service lives of
pavement joint sealants.
 Performance Analysis
The pavement serviceability-performance concept was first
introduced by Carey and Irick (1960). To study the performance
characteristics of flexible pavements, Hertz’s theory of the
deflection of an elastic plate on a fluid subgrade was used. The
relationship between the cumulative peak pavement deflections
and condition of that system, the stress/strain response of asphalt
concrete under cyclic loading, threshold values for friction index,
and crack propagation between beam specimens and layered
pavements were also investigated by a number of researchers
 Transportation Design and Safety
During the 20th century, the private automobile in the
United States went from being rarely sighted to a ubiquitous
presence as the supporting road system was methodically
expanded and improved, making automobile use safe and
convenient.
The transportation engineers have been engaged in a
constant struggle to make the system safe and to overcome
congestion, whether of horse-drawn vehicles in New York City
long ago or on Los Angeles’ freeways. Although the rates of
occurrence of crashes and fatalities are lower than ever, the
absolute numbers are still high. For congestion, the engineer’s
response has largely been to increase system capacity. This has
proven to be a short-term solution in the larger urban areas.
 Transportation Planning and
Operation
From Wellington’s classic study of railroad location (1887)
to contemporary multimodal corridor studies, the planning of
transportation facilities has been an integral part of civil
engineering profession. While the scope and focus of these
activities has evolved and broadened, planning continues to be a
major effort. Civil engineers developed the first systematic
comparison of urban land use, formulated the methods for
forecasting future travel demands (trip generation, trip
distribution, mode split, and traffic assignment), and analyzed
spacing requirements for urban freeways.
 The role of planning in transportation is vital for strategic
or tactical evaluations and predictions of travel demands, land use
patterns, and air quality issues for various transportation modes
for both passenger and freight movements.
Planning and operations appear most prominently in the
field of traffic engineering for surface transportation. However,
transportation engineers also confront planning and operations
issues in facility management, particularly for large complexes
such as airports. Transportation engineers also often become
involved with urban-planning processes in developing long-term
transportation plans.