95714 - SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT SYSTEM DESIGN

Learning outcomes

The course is split in two modules, wheras the “Sustainable Transportation Engineering” module covers transport modelling and planning, while the “Urban road mobility design and maintenance” module focuses on the design of infrastructure necessary to improve the sustainability of transport. The main goals of this course is explain the theoretical foundations of methods that are necessary to understand, apply and evaluate the various scientific and technological approaches which potentially improve the sustainability of transportation. It presents examples of the aforementioned approaches such as infrastructure planning in favor of sustainable modes, alternative fuels and propulsion methods, innovative transport systems, and various taxation schemes to include external costs and attempts to change awareness. A main purpose is to make students capable to analyzing critically the potential of new approaches to sustainable transportation, rather than to give a complete coverage of all known methods proposed to date. Furthermore, the course intends to provide notions on the main tools used for a correct planning and planning of interventions on sustainable mobility in the urban environment. Finally, it intends to provide the fundamentals of road infrastructure management and the main maintenance techniques. The course will provide the bases of sustainable transportation systems and will also be an excellent starting point for students who intend to continue their studies in Civil Engineering in the “Sustainable mobility in urban areas” curriculum.

Course contents

- Transport systems: definition of supply, demand and supply-demand interaction

- Elements of transport supply: graphs, networks, cost functions

- Demand elements: demand characteristics, approaches to demand estimation (from model, from surveys, from traffic flows)

- The state of the transport system: concept of assignment, relevant elements for the simulation of the state of a transport system, static and dynamic modeling, congestion phenomena 

- Sustainable mobility

- Simulation of transport scenarios by taking into account new technologies (es. Connected Automated Vehicles)

Readings/Bibliography

E. Cascetta, Transportation System Analysis: Models and Applications, Springer, 2009

M. Ben-Akiva e S. R. Lerman, Discrete Choice Analysis, The MIT Press, 1985.

Teaching methods

The course will include lectures and exercises.

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

The slides that are shown in class are made available to students through the link Virtuale Unibo. Software for the project and lecture notes are made available to students too.

Office hours

See the website of Federico Rupi

See the website of Claudio Lantieri