CEE 310 - TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING

Spring 2019

MWF 11-11:50 am, 1310 Yeh Center, Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory

Instructors: Prof. Lewis Lehe

1203 Newmark Civil Engineering Lab.
(217) 300-9535
[email protected]
Office Hours: 1-2 pm MW or by appointment

Prof. Erol Tutumluer

1205 Newmark Civil Engineering Lab.
(217) 333-8637
[email protected]
Office Hours: 1-2 pm MW or by appointment

TAs:
Negin Alemazkoor, [email protected] (systems)
Office Hours: Tu Th 12:30-2:00 pm or by appointment
Newmark 3310

Wenting Hou, [email protected] (facilities)

Office Hours: Tu Th 12:30-2:00 pm or by appointment

Instruction: Prof. Lehe will teach Blocks 1 through 4,

Introduction and Transportation Systems (first half of semester)

Prof. Tutumluer will teach Blocks 6 through 9,

Transportation Facilities (second half of semester)

Transportation rail faculty will teach Block 5: Railroad

Engineering (mid semester)

Text and Notes: No textbook is required. Class notes will be used along with
posted readings using the Compass class website.

Course Content:

This course provides an introduction to the planning, design and operations of

transportation systems, and materials selection, design, operation,
management, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. Functional
design concepts for both transportation systems and facilities with life cycle
costing procedures and criteria for optimization are introduced. This class will
help students (1) become familiar with transportation engineering and most
planning and engineering design problems in this context; and (2) apply the
methodologies introduced in this course to solve transportation engineering
problems.

The course content will be covered in three main sections: Section I,

Introduction: This section discusses the importance of transportation, its key
economic impacts, and multi-modal transportation systems (highways, air, rail,
etc.). Section II, Facilities: Structural characteristics, loading conditions,
analysis, and performance of transportation facilities including pavements are
introduced. Types, properties, specifications, and construction of typical
transportation materials are addressed. Section III, Railroads: This section
briefly covers freight and passenger transportation related railroad engineering
topics. Section IV, Systems: This section provides an overview of
transportation planning and engineering issues, including demand analysis,
human factors, roadways design, network performance, traffic flow dynamics,
capacity analysis, and network equilibrium.

Course Outline: The tentative lecture schedule is as follows.

Section I: Introduction [beginning 1/18]

Block 1 - INTRODUCTION (1 lecture)

o Importance of transportation, motivation for study
o Key historical notes
o Transportation modes and their functions

Section II: Transportation Systems [beginning 1/23]

Block 2 - HUMAN FACTORS AND DESIGN ELEMENTS (6 lectures)

o Vehicle, driver characteristics
o Sight distances, stopping distances
o Geometric design, horizontal and vertical curves

Block 3 - NETWORK PERFORMANCE AND EQUILIBRIUM (7 lectures)

o Traffic flow, capacity, and dynamic behavior
o Bottlenecks, intersections, and queuing theory
o Temporal and spatial network equilibriums (trip assignment)

Block 4 - PLANNING AND DEMAND ANALYSIS (5 lectures)

o The transportation planning process
o Trip generation, distribution, mode choice

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Section III: Railroad Engineering [beginning 3/6]

Block 5 - RAILROAD ENGINEERING (4 lectures)

o Introduction to railroad facilities
o Rail track infrastructure, rail loading
o Deterioration modes, condition assessment and rating
o Construction and rehabilitation overview
o Railroad systems and operations

Section IV: Transportation Facilities [beginning 3/15]

Block 6 - PERFORMANCE AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS (7 lectures)

o Statistics, equipment, structure, deterioration and condition assessment
for highway and airport pavements
o Load conditions for flexible and rigid pavements
o Stress, strain, and deflection responses for typical pavement structures

Block 7 - SUBGRADE SOIL PROPERTIES (5 lectures)

o Subgrade characteristics and properties
o Analyses of soil properties
o Unified and AASHTO soil classification procedures
o Compaction issues including moisture-density relationships, effects of
compaction on subgrade properties, and compaction methods

Block 8 - AGGREGATE PROPERTIES (3 lectures)

o Definition and purpose of aggregates
o Sources and quality of aggregates
o Properties, including strength and modulus, particle size, and moisture
effects on ballast and granular subbases and base courses

Block 9 - SURFACE MATERIALS (2 lectures)

o Portland cement
o Portland cement concrete (PCC) properties, testing and paving
o Asphalt binder
o Asphalt concrete properties, testing, paving, and surface treatments

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Course Policies

I. Grading
Final grades may be based upon a curve; however, final grade cutoffs should not
exceed the following:

A+=96.7%; A = 93.3%; A- = 90.0%; B+ = 86.7%; B = 83.3%; B- = 80%; etc…

Grade Distribution:
Exams: 4 at 20% = 80%
Homework: 20%
100%

II. Exams:
Four hourly exams (2 given by each professor), the last of which will be given during
the official scheduled final exam time. However, all exams, including the final, carry
equal weight and are not intended to be comprehensive in nature.
The exam schedule is as follows:
 Exam 1 (systems #1): In class, Monday, February 11, 2019
 Exam 2 (systems #2): In class, Monday, March 4, 2019
 Exam 3 (facilities #1): In class, Wednesday, April 17, 2019
 Exam 4 (facilities #2): In class, final exam period: 7:00-10:00 pm, Thursday,
May 9, 2019

It is important to take each exam at the scheduled time, as make up exams will NOT
be offered.

III. Attendance:
Attendance is mandatory for this class. Please inform the instructor ahead of time if
you must miss class, or provide an official medical excuse if absent due to illness.
More importantly, good attendance will lead to better understanding of course
materials, better grades, and will strengthen your chances for obtaining scholarships,
fellowships, research and teaching assistantships, and access to other employment
opportunities.

IV. Homework:
Homework will be assigned approximately once per week. All assigned homework is
due at the beginning of the class for the prescribed due date. Assignments turned in
after this time will be considered late, and subject to a 20% reduction in score per
day. If you cannot turn your assignment in on time and feel you have a valid excuse,
please see the instructor about making alternate arrangements for submitting your
assignment. Arrangements should be made ahead of the due date, if applicable.

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V. Formatting Requirements for Assignments

Homework Assignments
Homework assignments are not formal; however, they should be presented in a
professional manner. Specifically, for handwritten work you must use engineering
paper, write only on one side of the sheets, number your sheets, use pencil and
either erase or neatly cross-out mistakes, write neatly/consistently/ and give some
consideration to page layout (e.g., don’t cram your work). Alternatively, portions or all
of your homework may be done on a word processor and/or a spreadsheet.
Neatness and organization counts: if we cannot read or interpret your solution, then
points will be lost. However, you must still pay attention to neatness, consistency and
page layout, even when using the computer. In both cases, a cover sheet is
recommended, but not required. On the cover sheet, include the homework
assignment number, a brief title, the course number (CEE 310), submitted by:,
submitted to:, and the date of submission. Please box or underline your answers!

Graphs and Charts

It is recommended that a spreadsheet be used for the preparation of graphs/charts.
Choose a logical axis numbering scheme such that the data spans across most of
the plot. When presenting a series of related graphs/charts, use identical plot sizes
and numbering schemes if possible. Clearly distinguish between different data series
by using different symbols and/or line types. Include a legend to identify different data
series.

VI. Optional Research Papers to Improve Exam Scores:

A student can elect to write a research paper to increase an exam score by up to

10% of the exam grade (not to exceed 100%) (up to 2% of the final course grade)
during the course of the semester. This can be done at most twice during the
semester; once per each half of the course. The research paper must be on a topic
which bears some relationship to the material covered in class. The paper will be due
one week from the day exam grades are posted, except for the final exam, which
must be turned in on the day of the exam. A hard copy of the paper must be
submitted in class on or before the due date, and an electronic copy (*.doc or *.docx;
no PDFs) must be uploaded to the course website on Compass. Please note that
SafeAssign (http://safeassign.com/) will be used to check the originality of the
submitted papers.

Students can and should use a combination of sources to conduct their research,
including but not limited to: journal articles, conference proceedings, books,
magazines, the internet, interviews, etc. All sources must be properly cited and
papers will be checked for plagiarism. You will have the opportunity to check your
paper for plagiarism using the same tool as we will use prior to handing in your
assignment. More details will be provided on Compass. Papers which are
predominantly based upon Wikipedia or other non-technical internet sources will

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receive lower marks. Papers must be at least 1500 words in length (about 6, double-
spaced pages (not including references)) and must be well written. Journal papers
can be accessed through the UIUC online library and through the TRIS website
(http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/index.do).

In addition, remember that this is a research paper, so please endeavor to use more
high quality/reputable sources, and fewer low quality/unreliable sources. In general,
about 10 references would make for a good bibliography (references) for a paper of
this scope. To maximize your score, please note that the ranking in the quality of
sources is generally:

Journal paper > peer-reviewed conference paper > report or non-peer-

reviewed conference paper > trustworthy internet source > Wikipedia

Thus, make sure that your references contain more high quality journal and
conference papers and few internet citations. Also, be sure to place citation
references in your report, so that your facts, statements, etc., are backed up by
citations of the sources for which they were derived.

VII. Selected Online Class Days

On several occasions, the instructors may offer online lectures during the course of
the semester. Online class days will be announced at least one class in advance, and
will also be announced on the Compass website and via email. The online classes
should be viewed before the next class period, and can be accessed 24-hours per
day.

VIII. Classroom Etiquette

Classroom lectures and discussions will be informal to the extent that you are
encouraged to ask questions and offer discussion at any time you wish. Comments
relating to job/summer experiences are particularly solicited. However, side
discussions between students are distracting to other students during lectures
and formal demonstrations and will be highly frowned upon. You must always
show respect to other students, as maintaining a healthy classroom climate is of
utmost importance to me.

Other important conduct issues include: coming to all classes and being on-time; not
reading the newspaper or doing other tasks during class time; etc. Remember, while
there are no specific grades assigned to good classroom etiquette, making a
favorable or unfavorable impression through your classroom conduct could influence
a borderline grade.

To foster and promote integrity among students, the CEE Honor Code was
developed with input from several CEE undergraduate organizations, the CEE
Graduate Student Advisory Committee, and the CEE Graduate Affairs Committee.

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You (the student) commit to honor the code each time you sign an exam, and
implicitly whenever you sign homework or other class assignments.

The CEE Honor Code pledge is the following:

“I pledge to uphold the highest levels of professional and personal integrity in all of
my actions, including (1) never assisting or receiving unfair assistance during exams,
(2) never assisting or receiving assistance on class assignments beyond that
specified by an instructor, and (3) always fully contributing to group activities that are
part of a course activity.”

For University policies and regulations please refer to the Student Code
(http://admin.illinois.edu/policy/code/). You are responsible for maintaining
compliance with the University policy on academic integrity as defined in Section 1-
402 (http://admin.illinois.edu/policy/code/article1_part4_1-402.html) of the Student
Code, and the Department Honor Code as defined above.

Finally please note that posting any content from this course, including
homework assignments, exams, quizzes, etc. to the Web without explicit
permission from the course instructors violates copyright law, the Student
Code, and the CEE Honor Code and is therefore not permitted.