72860 - Transport Systems Design M

Learning outcomes

The Transportation Systems Design course aims to provide students with the basic tools for simulation and functional design of the transportation system in order to identify solutions that meet the concept of sustainable mobility. Different structures in terms of demand and / or supply and interventions on the transport system can generate different impacts on the territorial system (such as pollution, variations in accessibility, land use, quality of life), which must be estimated quantitatively both in the planning and in the system monitoring phases.

Course contents

Introduction to the course - The concept of transport system - The supply subsystem and the demand subsystem - Transport-land use interaction - the European corridors - the planning process - The topological representation of the transport supply - Graphs - main properties of graphs - General information on link cost functions and transport networks - The concept of path - The link-path incidence matrix - Forward star - link and path costs - Congestion and uncongested cost functions - The transport demand - Spatial and temporal variability - Study and traffic zones - Internal and external centroids - The concept of link and path flow - State variables: link and path flows, link and path costs - use of the results of the assignment models to identify the state of the transport system - the system performance and sustainability requirements - the principle of environmental sustainability - Structure of the planning process: territorial and temporal level - Strategic and tactical planning - National, regional and local plans - Master plans, implementation and feasibility studies - Transport guidelines and plans - Political, technical and other bodies involved in the planning process of a territorial system - Plan documents: identification of three main phases (Analysis of the current situation, Construction of future scenarios, Simulation of scenarios and choice of the proposed plan) - Analysis of the current situation: the technical activities relating to the identification of the status quo - Construction of intervention scenarios with respect to the set of objectives, evaluation of the individual alternatives and proposed plan - Monitoring activity - modal choice - the choice alternatives - the relevant variables - the mode choice sub-model in the context of the stage model - competition / integration among modes of transport - the concept of "seamless journey" - RP and SP surveys - Sample data - simple random sampling - survey forms and type of investigation - RP type data and their use - Direct estimate of demand - Sample estimate of demand - simple and stratified random sampling - demand estimator - confidence limits - Static and diachronic networks - preventive and adaptive choices - the representation of the user's choice process for a collective scheduled service - Frequency service - representation of the network - diversion nodes and attractive lines - hyperpaths - Hyperpath model - probability of diversion and probability of path choice within the hyperpath - Average cost of a hyperpath - average waiting time - probability of choosing the path in the hyper-approach - Identification of the design solution with respect to the planning level - Simulation approach (what if) for the quantification of a design solution - Design approach (what to) and the generation of the solution - the objective function - The project variables (layout, performance, price variables) - the constraints - some examples of objective function (minimization of the total cost on the network) - Example of identification of the performance variables (link capacity, traffic lights intersection capacity) and constraint conditions - Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept - integration of services - sharing mobility and effects in the transport system - transfers between different transport modes - associated disutility and overall travel time - data management - implications for cybersecurity - Autonomous vehicles - future perspectives - connected cars and control systems - current infrastructures and the needs for connected cars –- urban mobility scenarios for new transport modes

Readings/Bibliography

Apart from lesson notes autonomously written by students, the following books are suggested:

Cascetta E. (2001) “Transportation systems engineering: theory and methods”, Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Di Gangi M., Postorino M.N. (2005) "Modelli e procedure per l'analisi dei sistemi di trasporto : esercizi ed applicazioni", FrancoAngeli, Italia.

Teaching methods

Lectures and Practical / Workshops

Assessment methods

Written test made by theoretical and practical questions. Questions will concern the course contents, as described in the detailed program. The goal of the written test is to evaluate students’ knowledge and their ability to apply such knowledge in a working environment by using a system approach able to link the functional design of a single transport element to the transport network analysis and the produced effects.

Teaching tools

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Office hours

See the website of Maria Nadia Postorino