Courses

Transportation courses offered at Dalhousie University  

PLAN 4106/6106 Transportation Planning 

This course is designed for undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in transportation planning. The main aim of the course is to introduce fundamental concepts of transportation planning, travel behaviour, multi-modal transportation, public transit, the four-stage model, and intelligent transportation systems. By the end of the course, students should have a basic understanding of  transportation systems, and planning processes, methods and applications.

Specific objectives of the course include: Recognize transportation planning and decision-making processes; Understand transportation data collection processes, travel surveys, travel behaviour trends and its implications; Recognize multi-modal transportation theory, including public transit, alternative modes of travel such as active transportation; Develop basic understanding of transportation performance analysis, including highway capacity, level of service, transit headway, dwell time, on-time performance etc.; Understand travel demand forecasting tools, particularly classical four-stage model; Develop basic understanding of trip generation, distribution, mode choice and route assignment; Identify basic elements of intelligent transportation systems; Develop skills to conduct transportation data collection and planning studies; Present information about transportation studies/projects in a scholarly manner.

Refer to the academic calendar for official class description.

CIVL 6139 Transport Operations 

This course is an introduction to the operation of transportation services at the urban and regional levels. Surveys and data collection, development of computerized data bases, and elements of travel forecasting; trip generation, trip distribution, modal split, trip assignment are covered. Operational characteristics of public transportation, airports and freight distribution systems, and performance evaluation are discussed. Environmental, energy and safety implications of transportation systems, and existing policies are reviewed.

Refer to the academic calendar for official class description.

CIVL 7000 Transport Modelling 

Transport models are critical in understanding transportation systems. This course will focus on studying essential elements of transport modelling, following a textbook (Ortuzar and Willumsen, 2011) and related journal articles. Students will offer presentations and group discussion on various modelling issues, including mathematical prerequisites, data and space, specification and estimation of discrete choice models, and travel behaviour analysis. The student will be required to undertake a project in transport model development and application. The project will consist of identification of a transport modelling issue and developing an approach for modelling, including data acquisition, model development, estimation and interpretation of the empirical results.

Refer to the academic calendar for official class description.