Description:

This courses enables transportation sciences students from various backgrounds to intelligent and smart transportation solutions that influence technological advancements. Traditional methods such as advanced traveler information and dynamic message signs are now part of a broader landscape that features deployments of connected, automated, and autonomous vehicle technologies with infinite possibilities. The effective utilization of current emerging technologies requires an interdisciplinary approach with focus on the benefits, operating characteristics, deployment considerations, and potential shortcomings of the deployed solutions in various transport scenarios. Some of the key topics will focus on hands-on case studies that encourage critical thinking to assess opportunities for the continuous improvement of deployed and new solutions, tailored to the local context.

Objectives:

The end-competences of this course include (but not limited to):

• A conceptual understanding of the most common intelligent solutions in transportation with their anticipated benefits, and their shortcomings.
• A basic understanding of how emerging technological developments would transform the transportation system in the near future.
• Knowledge to plan for the practical deployment of such solutions.
• Insights into the vast potential of possible approaches to apply current technologies in ways that would facilitate useful interactions between transportation supply and demand, performance measures, planning, and policy making.
• Experience with SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility) during the self-learning sessions/task. More details will be given in the class.
  

Content:

• Traveler information and advisory systems (such as dynamic signage, onboard equipment, CCTV, smartphone applications)
• Traffic flow control (including adaptive signaling, ramp metering, variable speed limits/warnings, transit priority
• Automatic electronic payments (such as toll tags, transit cards, RFID, smartphones)
• Pre-clearance systems (including vehicle classification, high-speed weigh-in-motion, roadside inspection, freight scanners)
• Technologies for managed facilities (such as HOV and other dedicated lanes)
• Smart parking solutions (occupancy sensors, parking reservation systems, metering technologies, etc.)
• Security and privacy impacts of technology deployments
• Connected vehicles technologies and architectures
• Major applications of connected vehicle technologies (information, ride sharing, crash avoidance, driver assist, platoons, etc.)
• Automated and autonomous vehicles
• Cloud computing (advisory systems: security threats, weather, work zones, incidents, detours, traffic)
• Big Data (travel time forecasting, maintenance decision-support, flow optimization, parking availability)
• Remote sensing (surveillance, satellites, UAV technology, emergency response incident management)
• Smart solutions in transportation for improving environment
• Sustainable mobility solutions in a cross-sectoral context (e.g. tourism)

The majority of your learning will be done through self-study, based on the course material that is made available online. You will have access to a range of useful online learning materials such as online lectures, reading materials, as well as access to thousands of e-books, online journals and other resources via our online university library. Approximately mid-semester, an online interactive Question and Answer session will be organised, where students can meet the course lecturer and fellow students online and have the opportunity to go deeper into the course material.

All evaluations will be done online, whether by submission of assignments or by taking written or oral exams online, or a combination of assignments and exams. Written exams will be done with online proctoring (exam supervision) to retain the integrity of a supervised exam, while providing the flexibility of an online platform. For the online exams, distance learning students should ensure to have a laptop/pc with a working webcam and microphone, a charged mobile device (phone/tablet) and a stable internet connection (minimum upload speed of 1.5 MB/second), as well as a quiet, secluded room to take the exam in.