Undergraduate Course: Transport Engineering 3 (CIVE10033)
Course Outline
| School | School of Engineering |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course is an introduction to transport engineering, covering the core concepts of transport policy and planning, highway and traffic engineering, safety, and sustainable and smart mobility. |
| Course description |
Overview and aims:
This course introduces the fundamentals of transport engineering and examines how policy, planning, design, and operations work together to shape safe, efficient, sustainable and smart transport systems. Students develop a solid foundation in transport policy frameworks, highway and street design, traffic operations, safety, and sustainable and smart mobility solutions. Emphasis is placed on diagnosing system performance, generating and evaluating alternatives, and communicating practical, evidence-based recommendations while considering cost, feasibility, environmental impact and equity implications.
Content outline (indicative):
Policy and planning: transport policy instruments; planning strategies and plan-making stages; stakeholder engagement; alignment with relevant UN SDGs; equity and accessibility.
Travel demand and network fundamentals: travel behaviour; demand versus capacity; level of service (LOS); queues, delay, and bottlenecks; performance measures.
Traffic flow and operations: fundamental diagrams (flow¿speed¿density), headways, saturation flow rate; junction types; signal timing essentials and coordination; speed management.
Safety fundamentals: Safe System principles; conflict analysis; road safety audit basics; common countermeasures.
Sustainable and active mobility: public transport priority; walking and cycling design; street-space reallocation and placemaking; environmental impacts.
Smart mobility and data: intelligent transport systems (ITS); connected and automated vehicles; micromobility; demand-responsive transit; data collection (manual counts, sensors, open data); basic analysis and visualisation; scenario testing.
Appraisal and delivery: option generation; multi-criteria appraisal; cost¿benefit analysis concepts; feasibility and risk; monitoring and evaluation.
Guest contributions (industry and academic): traffic modelling, railway engineering, emerging topics in transport.
Learning experience:
Teaching blends interactive lectures and guided tutorials, complemented by problem-based workshops and studio-style sessions that foster collaborative design and critique of proposed interventions. Student-led seminars deepen engagement with set readings and themes while building confidence in presenting, discussing, and synthesising key concepts in a supportive environment. Guest speakers connect methods to practice through talks and Q&A. Formative feedback is provided on in-class activities, student-led seminars, and coursework.
Coursework:
Students complete a structured traffic study, i.e., scoping objectives, collecting/curating data, diagnosing operational and safety issues, and proposing feasible interventions. The study is appraised using performance, safety, environmental, and equity criteria and presented in a professional report.
This course aligns with the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 13: Climate Action
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Fieldwork Hours 10,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 1.5,
Revision Session Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
54 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
50 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Written Exam %: 50
Practical Exam %: 0
Coursework %: 50 |
| Feedback |
Formative feedback:
Given during in-class activities and student-led seminars through verbal guidance.
Provided on the coursework at agreed checkpoints, focusing on actionable next steps.
Summative feedback:
Coursework: a cover sheet aligned with the marking criteria providing criterion-by-criterion marks and comments, and a concise summary with feed-forward actions. |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Minutes |
|
| Main Exam Diet S1 (December) | Transport Engineering 3 | 90 | | | Resit Exam Diet (August) | Transport Engineering 3 | 90 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Evaluate transport policy frameworks and planning approaches, incorporating relevant Sustainable Development Goals.
- Analyse traffic operations and system efficiency to design safe, sustainable, and user-centric transport systems.
- Assess the wider implications of transport engineering projects.
- Apply principles of sustainable and smart mobility solutions in transport systems.
|
Reading List
Highway Engineering, Rogers, Martin, Enright, Bernard, 3rd edition., 2016. - ebooks in UoE Library
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Transport Engineering,Transport Planning,Traffic Engineering,Highway Design,Sustainable Transport |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Pavlos Tafidis
Tel:
Email: ptafidis@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lorna Couttie
Tel:
Email: lcouttie@ed.ac.uk |
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