Transportation and Infrastructure Systems Engineering
As a branch of civil engineering, transportation engineering has a history that is long and illustrious and a future that is full of promise. The National Academy of Engineering has identified restoring urban infrastructure and implementing smart mobility as grand challenges. We need coordinated approaches to tackle transportation issues by integrating car, rail, bus, truck, walking and bicycling to meet sustainability goals. Currently, we see how smartphones have enabled ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, while taxis and GPS-equipped cars and trucks are providing massive amounts of data that was unimaginable a few years back. Before long, it may be common to have vehicles are talking to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicles talking to each other (V2V). Traffic flow with automated vehicles is expected to be much safer and more efficient than with human drivers.
The journey to that future will be fascinating and challenging. The safe and efficient movement of people and goods relies on infrastructure. Highways, airports, railroads, waterways and pipelines need to be planned, designed, operated, and maintained. Purdue's Transportation and Infrastructure Systems Engineering faculty offer a wide range of classes, research facilities, and experiences. Their efforts will have noticeable impacts on challenges such as:
- Asset management
- Data acquisition and analytics
- Emergency response
- Energy
- Freight Transportation and Logistics
- Environment
- Smart Mobility
- Sustainability
- Urban infrastructure
The award-winning Purdue Student Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers introduces students to the transportation profession and fosters a close association of students with practicing engineers, educators from other institutions, and local and national chapters of ITE.
Spotlights
October 26, 2017
The Purdue transportation student team Boiler Hackers (Xinwu Qian, Wenbo Zhang, Shubham Agarwal, and Hemant Gehlot) recently won the 2016-2017 IATR HACK-A-THON final competition. Their winning proposal involved serving autonomous electric taxis at existing urban parking facilities.
October 19, 2017
Through funding awarded by the DOE ARPA-E IDEAS program, the electric roadways study will analyze freight and passenger vehicle corridors in lower Los Angeles County and evaluate in-road inductive wireless and overhead conductive electric roadway technology solutions.
October 13, 2017
The Board of Trustees has approved the naming of Darcy Bullock as the Lyles Family Professor of Civil Engineering. Bullock joined Purdue in 1998 as a civil engineering faculty member. He has been honored by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Transportation Research Board and was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar, 2005-2010.
October 9, 2017
Satish Ukkusuri, Professor of Civil Engineering, is one of the select group invited to attend the fifth Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Symposium, presented by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
August 23, 2017
Lyles CE graduate student Seyed Ali Ghahari was recently awarded a competitive scholarship from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to attend the Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks Workshop that took place in Cambridge, July 31 – August 4, 2017.
August 2, 2017
CE doctoral student Seyed Ali Ghahari was awarded a competitive national scholarship by the Foundation of the Association of Energy Engineers (FAEE) to attend the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC) in Atlanta, GA, September 27-29, 2017.
August 2, 2017
Associate Professor, Konstantina (Nadia) Gkritza was awarded a fellowship by the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Greece to work with Prof. Eleni Vlahogianni of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece on collaborative research in smart and shared mobility and mentoring graduate students in transportation planning and engineering.
June 22, 2017
Purdue will host the 13th annual Inter-University Symposium on Infrastructure Management (AISIM) at multiple campus locations Friday (June 23). AISIM is an all-day event featuring information exchange and networking opportunities primarily for graduate students. The symposium often includes researchers and practitioners including infrastructure agencies, consultants and other stakeholders.
June 15, 2017
Tariq U. Saeed, a graduate student in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering was recently named a national Eno Fellow, Class of 2017, a select group of exceptionally promising graduate students who plan to pursue careers in transportation.
June 2, 2017
Samuel Labi, Professor of Civil Engineering, has been elected Vice President of the Transportation Research Forum, a prominent international organization that focuses on transport policy.
June 2, 2017
Kumares Sinha, Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, has been named a Faculty Fellow of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS) at Texas A&M University. HIAS attracts world-class talent to the University and is driven by nominations of National Academy and Nobel-prize caliber researchers that align with existing strengths and ambitions of the University. The Institute selects its Faculty Fellows from among top scholars in the nation who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments and recognition.
May 31, 2017
Purdue's Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Student Chapter has completed another successful year. They recently won the award for the Best Student Chapter Report in the Great Lakes District and are currently in the running for the ITE International level award for the Best Student Chapter.
May 15, 2017
CE graduate student Seyed Ali Ghahari will attend the Making Academic Change Happen Workshop 2017 on the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technlogy, supported by the National Science Foundation as an Emerging Educator.
April 27, 2017
Congratulations to CE grad student Davis Chacon-Hurtado on being awarded the Outstanding Service Scholarship. This scholarship is presented to engineering graduate students who have provided outstanding service to the graduate student community, the School, the College, and/or the University.
April 18, 2017
Congratulations to the Purdue University student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers for being named the ITE Great Lakes District Student Chapter of the Year.
March 16, 2017
The 103rd Purdue Road School Transportation Conference and Expo was the largest Road School on record at 2,709 attendees. This year's event included 155 technical sessions involving 327 speakers and moderators. The program had 164 Professional Development Hours (PDHs) available, including 4 hours of Indiana Statutes and Ethics for Professional Engineers.
March 14, 2017
Purdue Global Ambassador Davis Chacon-Hurtado focuses his research on the civil engineering of transportation systems in city environments. In particular, he is investigating the possible factors that make communities resistant or resilient to disruptions and economic shocks that can affect their quality of life and the role transportation can play in this resiliency.
March 9, 2017
Tariq Usman Saeed, a doctoral student in Transportation & Infrastructure Systems Engineering, has been appointed as a young member to the Standing Committee on Statistical Methods (ABJ80) and the Standing Committee on Bridge Preservation (AHD37) of Transportation Research Board (TRB) of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He was appointed in recognition of the active roles he continues to play in the functions of these committees.
February 7, 2017
Purdue University will lead research to determine why some communities recover from natural disasters more quickly than others, an effort aimed at addressing the nation's critical need for more resilient infrastructure and to enhance preparedness.
December 13, 2016
Over the past year there has been a strong interest in using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for transportation research. JTRP and Advanced Aviation Analytics Institute for Research (A3IR CORE) have developed a partnership where A3IR CORE was awarded a Certificate of Operating Authority (COA) for operating in Class D airspace adjacent to the Purdue Airport.
