A nationwide effort to improve transportation engineering education
Young, R. K.; Bernhardt, Kristen Sanford; Beyerlein, S. W.; Bill, A.; Kyte, M.; Heaslip, K.; Hurwitz, D. S.; Nambisan, S. S.
Over the last year and a half, a group of transportation engineering educators has worked to
develop a set of core concepts and learning outcomes for a typical introductory transportation
engineering course. To date, the group has developed knowledge tables for the core concepts
associated with traffic operations, transportation planning, geometric design, transportation
finance, transportation economics, traffic safety, transit, non-motorized transport, and human
factors. Further, the group has identified five ways of being (that is, sets of behaviors, actions,
and language) that, together with the core concepts, form the foundation for 13 course-level
learning outcomes.
The 20 members of the working group, which has become a subcommittee of the Institute of
Transportation Engineers (ITE) Education Council, represent 13 different colleges and
universities throughout the United States. The development process has consisted of regular
conference calls punctuated by a series of face-to-face meetings. Recognizing that stakeholder
involvement would be a critical element of success, the group has presented its work to date at
the Annual Meetings of the Transportation Research Board in January, 2010 and 2011 and at the
2010 ASEE Annual Conference. In August, 2010 the group held a workshop and conversation
circle at the ITE Annual Meeting with the goal of involving practicing engineers in the process.
This paper briefly describes the history of this effort. It presents examples of the work to date
and discusses the outcomes of the practitioner involvement. The work and feedback have been
incorporated into a pilot course that was taught in the Fall of 2010; the paper describes the
adaptation and assessment, including lessons learned for a second pilot implementation in
Spring, 2011. Finally, the next steps in this effort, including further development and assessment,
are explored.
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