TTE4004: TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING (Spring 2006)
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
INSTRUCTOR: / Professor Haitham Al-Deek, Ph.D., P.E., Rm. 209, Engineering Building-2, Ph. 823-2988, Fax 823-3315
E-mail:
Home Page: http://www.catss.ucf.edu/tsi or http://people.cecs.ucf.edu/al-deek
OFFICE HOURS: / Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:45 PM to 4:15 PM, or by appointment. Please call or email for appointments. Virtual (on the Web or via Internet) office hours will be provided from 4:15 PM to 5:45 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You are welcome to discuss anything with me during the appointment time. For quick questions, please email me and I will get back to you ASAP.
GOAL AND OBJECTIVES: / The goal is to introduce engineering students to highway transportation engineering. Three functional classifications are covered, namely planning, design and operation of transportation facilities. Emphasis is placed on the highway transportation mode vis-à-vis other modes of transportation. Most importantly, students will learn and have fun at the same time.
Specific objectives include:
1. Introduction to transportation engineering
2. Transportation planning (4 steps)
3. Geometric design and earthwork analysis
4. Traffic engineering (fundamentals of traffic flow, Highway Capacity Manual and Level of Service (LOS) analysis for freeways)
5. Traffic signals (queuing diagrams and delay)
6. Miscellaneous topics in transportation (e.g., ITS)
PRE-REQUISITE: / EGN 3613 and STA 3032.
CREDIT HOURS: / 4
Time & Place: / 10:00 AM to 11:50 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays in Engineering Building-2, Room 203.
TEXTBOOK:
TEXTBOOK CONTINUED… / Required: Instructor's Class Modules (Notes, Lectures, and Updates) posted on the class WebCT web site.
This class will be taught on WebCT. It is very important that each student has reliable access to the Internet. All modules or lecture notes, handouts, homeworks, homework solutions, discussions (including messages from the professor to the class), announcements, and other events will be posted on the class WebCT web site maintained by the AIM lab. Students need to login and use their passwords to access this information. Note that it is the responsibility of each student to visit the class web site on a daily basis to check on the above items regularly. Also, it is the responsibility of the student to download the above material, print the handouts, print the lecture modules or notes and corresponding updates, and bring them to the class to follow the instructor during the lecture. The instructor will NOT have hard copies for students who forget to bring their own copies to the class.
Note that the following textbook is NOT required. However, there are few chapters that can be useful reading as indicated in the class schedule:
Recommended Reading: Transportation Engineering: Planning and Design, Wright & Ashford, Fourth Edition, Wiley, ©1998.
A copy of this book will remain on the library reserve section throughout the semester. Please note that there is NO need to purchase a copy of this book.
Class G.T.A.: / Steve Mitchell, Transportation Engineering Ph.D. student, Engineering Building-2, Room 325 (Transportation Lab), Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9 AM to 1 PM. Steve’s phone number and E-mail are (407) 823-4552,
GRADES POLICY:
GRADES POLICY CONTINUED…
GRADES POLICY CONTINUED… / Homework problems will be assigned as needed. Short technical quizzes will be given (less than 10 minutes each, quiz time may vary for each quiz). In addition, random pop-up quizzes will be conducted. The pop-up quizzes are designed to check on students’ attendance (and may check their comprehension of lecture material). No credit for late homeworks submitted after solution is posted on the class WebCT web site. The total weight for exams is 80% of final grade. There will be a total of two tests during the semester plus a final exam with the following grade breakdown:
Test / Subjects Covered / Test Weight
Test#1 / TBD –the specific subjects covered in this test will depend on lecture pace and class progress. / 25 points
Test#2 / TBD –the specific subjects covered in this test will depend on lecture pace and class progress. / 25 points
Important Note: The best one out of the above two tests (test#1 and test#2) will represent the grade of both tests and will count towards your grade. So, the total grade for tests during the semester is 50 points.
Final Exam
/ All subjects covered in class. / 30 points.The rest of the 20 points will be divided as follows: Points
Homeworks (all homeworks will be counted) 6 6
Scheduled Quizzes (count the best 2 out of 3) 4
Random or Pop-Up Quizzes 10
FINAL GRADE SUM 100
Important Notes:
1) All students must use the WebCT Course Mail tool to communicate with the instructor by e-mail. Please DO NOT use the regular instructor’s e-mail address () unless WebCT is down or you are unable to access it. This is important so that the instructor can pay proper attention to your request and respond to it in a timely manner.
2) The random pop-up quizzes will check on attendance (and may also examine class comprehension of the lecture material). The instructor may choose to conduct these pop-up quizzes during every lecture starting in the second week of classes and throughout the semester. Once the instructor calls on students to confirm their presence in a lecture, no credit can be given for students who come late or who do not show up for class. The instructor will call on students to confirm their presence only once during the lecture, but the time when he calls on them is random (can be any time during the lecture). The students are allowed to skip a class (and therefore the pop-up quiz) only twice during the semester without a reason and a third time with medical reasons verified in writing. Only for these three times that the student’s grade for pop-up quizzes will not be affected. The penalty for missing a pop-up quiz is two points out of the total 10 points allocated for the pop-up quizzes. Of course, the maximum penalty cannot exceed 10 points. But these 10 points count as 10 points of the final grade.
3) The plus and minus grading system will be used in grading this class.
4) Generally, there are no make up exams in this class. The instructor may consider a makeup exam but only with written verification of emergencies signed by a professional (e.g., in case of medical emergencies the student must present written verification from the medical doctor).
5) CEE department policy is NOT to allow submitting homework assignments by fax.
6) Any late submittals of homework assignments after the specified deadline will be subjected to grade reduction. The homework grade will be reduced by 20% for each late day after the deadline. However, as soon as the solution is posted on the class web site then no credit can be given for late submittals, in other words a grade of zero will be assessed for the late homework in this case.
SUGGESTIONS / I welcome all of your suggestions and new ideas throughout the course.