CE576 Highway Design and Traffic Safety - Spring 08

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Overview
Class schedule
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Design projects
Contact

TIME AND PLACE: 1:30 PM - 2:20 PM BEL 205

INSTRUCTOR: Ahmed Abdel-Rahim, Ph.D., P.E.

Office: 115 B Engineering/Physics Building

Telephone: (208) 885-2957     Fax:(208) 885-2957

e-mail: ahmed@uidaho.edu

OFFICE HOURS: (MWF) 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM , Other times by advance appointment.

CE576 is also a Blackboard class. The class Blackboard page has a discussion group section. Students are encouraged to use the discussion groups to post any class-related questions and to communicate with other students. Blackboard can be accessed at http://www.blackboard.uidaho.edu

REQUIRED TEXT:

No text is required for the class. Please check the class website for a list of on-line resources and suggested reading materials for each class. The followings references and books will be used extensively throughout the course:

Please consult the class resources web page for resources relevant for the class.

COURSE CONTEXT, ORGANIZATION, and GOALS/OBJECTIVES

Providing a safe and efficient transportation system for all users is the primary objective of federal, state, and local transportation agencies throughout the nation. Better highway design practices have been proven to be the most efficient approach to "safer roads”. This highway design and traffic safety class is intended to provide the fundamentals of highway design and operation, human factors and vehicle characteristic and how they interact with the roadway, and highway safety analysis and different statistical techniques employed in the analysis.

This class will provide you with the background that you need to conduct effective highway design and safety analysis . You will develop this competency through the completion of three design projects. The first project deals with the design of different highway facilities. The second project deals with safety analysis and the determination of high crash location and potential countermeasures. The third project is crash investigation and expert witness analysis. You will complete your design work and you will cooperatively prepare reports and present the results of your work.

I have established the following objectives to guide your learning during this class.  At the end of this semester, you should be able to:

1. Design different highway facilities and apply relevant highway design standards

2. Analyze crash and traffic data employing the appropriate statistical techniques

3. Conduct traffic safety studies, identify high-accident locations, and propose crash countermeasure and potential engineering solutions.

4. Conduct crash investigation and expect witness analysis

A tentative class schedule is presented in the following table: