Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Transport engineering

Transport engineering (alternatively transportation engineering) is the science of safe and efficient movement of people and goods (transport). It is a sub-discipline of civil engineering.

The planning aspects of transportation engineering relate to urban planning, and involve technical forecasting decisions and political factors. Technical forecasting of passenger travel usually involves an urban transportation planning model, requiring the estimation of trip generation (how many trips for what purpose), trip distribution (destination choice, where is the traveler going), mode choice (what mode is being taken), and route assignment (which streets or routes are being used). More sophisticated forecasting can include other aspects of traveler decisions, including auto ownership, trip chaining (the decision to link individual trips together in a tour) and the choice of residential or business location (known as land use forecasting).

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