Asee peer logo

Investigating the Inclusion of Traffic Operations Concepts in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Curricula

Download Paper |

Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Committee on Educational Policy Presents: Pillars of Our Curriculum

Tagged Division

Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL)

Page Count

20

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43875

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43875

Download Count

384

Paper Authors

author page

Rebeka Yocum Oregon Institute of Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-1461-2756

biography

Vikash Gayah Pennsylvania State University

visit author page

Dr. Vikash V. Gayah is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University (joined 2012). He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Central Florida (2005 and 2006, respectively) and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley (2012). Dr. Gayah’s research focuses on urban mobility, traffic operations, traffic flow theory, traffic safety and public transportation. His research approach includes a combination of analytical models, micro-simulations and empirical analysis of transportation data. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, over 50 refereed conference proceedings, and numerous research reports to sponsors. He has worked on research contracts valued at more than $5 million, sponsored by the Pennsylvania, Washington State, Montana and South Dakota Departments of Transportation, US Department of Transportation (via the Mineta National Transit Research Consortium and the Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center), Federal Highway Administration, National Cooperative Highway Research Program and National Science Foundation.

Dr. Gayah currently serves as an editorial advisory board member of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, an editorial board editor of Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, an associate editor for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine (an international peer-reviewed journal), a handling editor for the Transportation Research Record and is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics (AHB 45), where he serves as a paper review coordinator. He has been recognized with multiple awards for his research and teaching activities, including the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship, Gordon F. Newell Award for Excellence in Transportation Science, University of California Transportation Center Student of the Year Award, New Faculty Award by the Council of University Transportation Centers, the Cunard, Fred Burggraf and D. Grant Mickle outstanding paper awards by the Transportation Research Board, Harry West Teaching Award by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State, Outstanding Teaching Award by the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society, and Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award by the National Science Foundation.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Transportation engineering education has been a topic of interest for researchers in recent decades. Existing surveys of transportation engineering education focus largely on the introductory transportation engineering course and does not consider the extent to which different focus areas are covered in those courses. Traffic operations is a critical focus area within transportation engineering and is considered a focus area of the field by industry professionals and educators alike. Thus, investigation into traffic operations is covered in introductory and secondary courses across different instructors and universities is essential to gaining insight into the current state of transportation engineering education. This paper documents the results of a survey of how traffic operations concepts are integrated into undergraduate level civil engineering curricula in the United States and how these topics are taught. A survey was distributed to faculty at universities with civil engineering programs across the United States. The survey responses reveal concepts related to traffic operations are covered in a large majority of introductory transportation courses and many universities offer a secondary course covering concepts related to traffic operations. The survey also reveals that, while most instructors utilize active learning strategies in their classrooms, there is little collaborative effort that goes into developing these strategies. These findings warrant further investigation into the benefits that could accompany collaborative development of active learning strategies.

Yocum, R., & Gayah, V. (2023, June), Investigating the Inclusion of Traffic Operations Concepts in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Curricula Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43875

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2023 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015