Transportation Engineering:
According to the Institute of transportation engineers (ITE) 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 movement of people and goods.
Different modes of
transportation
Modes of transportation can be classified as follows
1. Roadways and Highways
2. Railways
3. Water ways and
4. Airways
The science which covers
designing, maintenance and operation of the roads is called the highway
engineering.
The science dealing with
planning, designing operation and maintenance of railway tracks, wagon etc. is
called Railway Engineering.
Similarly planning, designing
operation and maintenance of waterways, airways respectively termed as Harbor
Engineering and Airport Engineering.
Classification of
Transportation Studies
Any transportation system
consists of various modes of travel ranging from walking to driving to use of
crafts that fly. One way of classifying a transportation system would then be
to form classes of different modes of travel. Such classification is termed modal
classification.
A little thought at this stage
will show that all modes of travel consist of the same set of elements such as
a person who drives, the vehicle which is driven, the path that is used, the
user who uses the mode, and the like. Therefore, another way of looking at a
transportation system could be to look at its elements. Such a classification
is termed elemental classification.
Another very different way of
looking at a transportation system is from the point of view of functions that
a transportation engineer needs to carry out. For example, a transportation
engineer may need to analyze and design facilities to be used by vehicles, or
may need to determine routes of buses, or may even need to chalk out a plan of
transportation-related activities. Therefore classify the field of
transportation engineering functionally termed as functional classification.
Figure: Classification schemes used for transportation engineering.