CIVL 6961 Dynamic Transportation Modeling (Spring 2006)

Overview:

DTM is a graduate-level class whose goals are:

  1. To rigourously formulate and solve transportation systems evolving with time as dynamic flow problems.
  2. To investigate novel ideas in this area via class room discussion, problem sets and semester long projects.
  3. To understand how transportation networks research is done.
The past few years have seen a remarkable growth in the use of information and sensor technology to manage and optimize networked infrastructure. Transportation Modeling has come a long way from the pioneering work on traffic flow theory. The advances in this field have transformed transportation from something we all take for granted, to an essential and efficiently managed system (service) by real time monitoring and other advanced approaches. This has motivated the development of new paradigms such as dynamic traffic assignment (DTA). As a field of research inquiry, DTA is loosely speaking the collection of efforts to mathematically model the time varying flow patterns on road networks that arise from the economic decisions of travelers and commuters. Beginning with the work of Merchant and Nemhauser (1975), the last twenty years have seen a great deal of DTA-related intellectual activity in the research community. The intent of this course is to present the essential features, novel solution approaches and the underlying challenges in implementing DTA. How do we account for dynamics in transportation networks? How do we study dynamic equilibrium in transportation networks? How do we ensure that these networks will work well in the future in the face of rapidly changing conditions? And how we solve such problems and design future transportation networks accounting for DTA conditions? These are some issues that we will grapple with in this course. We will emphasize the evaluation, design, implementation and analysis of dynamic transportation networked systems.

Topics include design philosophies, time dependent routing, analytical approaches to DTA, simulation based approaches, overview of design and implementation issues of DTA software, representation of network uncertainty, network design, cell based traffic flow models for DTA and validation of these models. Material for the course will be drawn from journal research papers, conference proceedings, and other text books.

CIVL 6270 Traffic System Operations and Control (Spring 2007)

Overview:

TSOC is a graduate-level class whose goals are:

  1. Analyze and design traffic signals at isolated intersections and urban street networks by identifying the parameters needed to perform this analysis.
  2. To investigate novel ideas in traffic control via class room discussion, problem sets and semester long projects.
  3. Ability to conceptualize, formulate and solve transit system models including route design, crew scheduling and other practical challenges associated with improving transit system performance.
  4. To understand how transportation networks research is done.
This course provides a firm grounding in understanding the analysis and design of traffic control systems for both isolated and networked transportation facilities. This course is intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students with a solid background in the basics of transportation (see prerequisites). A review of static transportation network analysis and basic queuing theory will be provided in the beginning of the class. The course will discuss the representation, modeling and optimization of traffic signals both at isolated intersections and networked systems. The course will then cover the freeway operations mainly focusing on different types of control strategies for improving the network throughput. The second half of the course will cover the different design issues related to transit network design, crew scheduling and introduction to vehicle routing problems. Real life applications (ramp metering operations, ATIS projects in the United States, transit systems in different cities) will be mentioned throughout the class. The emphasis in this course is primarily on precise analysis of traffic control systems and the use of traffic control strategies to improve the performance of transportation systems. Some basic programming knowledge will be required for the problems sets and the project.

Topics include different control architectures beginning with isolated facilities such as signal control (pre-timed, semi/actuated and demand responsive); freeway systems such as ramp metering and congestion pricing; network wide urban traffic control; transit system operations; vehicle routing; crew scheduling and transit network design. Material for the course will be drawn from journal research papers, conference proceedings, and other text books.