Urban Transportation Planning

Instructor Information

Name:

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D.

Email:

Office location:

Macdonald Harrington Building, Room 403

Office hours:

Wednesday, 10:05 to 12:25 pm

Phone:

514.398.4079

Biography:

Professor Haider holds a joint appointment with the School of Urban Planning and the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University where he teaches travel demand forecasting, land development and urban infrastructure investments. Professor Haider’s researches integrated transportation-land use modeling, real estate market dynamics, and equity concerns in mobility. He is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s Transportation and Land Development committee. He is also a member of the Canadian Transport Research Forum. A graduate of Engineering University in Peshawar, he later earned a Masters in transportation engineering and planning, and a Ph.D. in urban systems analysis from the University of Toronto. He also obtained a certificate in magazine journalism from Ryerson University. As a former journalist, he has written extensively on development issues in South Asia.

Course Information

Course title:

Urban Transportation Planning

Course number:

CIVE540

Prerequisite:

CIVE319: Transportation Engineering or permission from the instructor

Course discipline:

Civil Engineering

Course description:

The course is listed with the following description in the McGill University's academic calendar:

Process and techniques of urban transportation engineering and planning, including demand analysis framework, data collection procedures, travel demand modelling and forecasting, and cost-effectiveness framework for evaluation of project and system alternatives.

The course is based on the following inter-linked themes:

Introduction to Principles of Urban Transportation Planning
Introduction to transportation data collection/manipulation using GIS
Introduction to travel demand modelling and forecasting
Evaluation of transportation infrastructure investment alternatives

A case study approach will be adopted for this course. The instructor will present results from a series of research projects in transport planning, which will demonstrate the application of travel demand forecasting tools. In addition, travel behaviour analysis of select North American cities in a GIS environment will also be presented.

Course date:

September 7, 2005 to December 01, 2005

Location:

Adams 5

Meeting days:

Lectures: Wednesdays, 12:35 to 3:25 pm
Tutorials: Thursdays, 1:35 to 2:25 pm

Course Objectives

This course intends to prepare students for the following:

To develop an understanding of the issues and challenges facing mobility in urban areas
To design, conduct, or evaluate studies in urban transportation
To devise comprehensive transportation plans for mid- to large-size cities
To evaluate alternatives for transportation infrastructure investments

Assignments and Evaluation

For undergraduate students

The undergraduate engineering students will follow an empirical route solving numerical assignments and with a mid-term examination.

Component Weight

6 Assignments* 25%

Mid-term 25%

Term Paper 40%

Class Participation and Quizzes 10%

* Students have to submit all assignments to get a passing grade. A 3%/day penalty will be imposed for late submissions for assignments and term papers.

For graduate students

Graduate students will follow an analytical path and therefore evaluation will be based on two short essays and a term paper.

Component Weight

Essay No. 1 25%

Essay No. 2 25%

Term Paper 40%

Class Participation 10%

A 3%/day penalty will be imposed for late submissions for essays and term papers.

Academic Integrity

Students registered in the course are expected to abide by the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures as explained in the Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities of McGill University. In addition, students are expected to adhere to the code of ethics adopted by the Faculty of Engineering titled, "The Blueprint". Students are also encouraged to review the academic integrity guidelines and obligations as outlined on the McGill Integrity website (http://www.mcgill.ca/integrity).

Reading Material

Readings:

A course pack will be available from the McGill University Book Store.

Software:

This is an intense course designed around the state-of-the-art travel demand-modelling suite, TransCAD (http://www.caliper.com/tcovu.htm). The Greater Montréal Area will serve as a laboratory for this course. Using data from the latest Origin-Destination survey (1998) for the Greater Montréal Area, students will provide solutions to the real-life problems presented in assignments and term paper/s.

For those students who are interested in developing new assignment algorithms or testing the performance of existing algorithms, I recommend the use of Maple, which is available from Maplesoft (http://www.maplesoft.com). In addition, the handouts for gravity models and other trip distribution models are in Maple format, which could be used to solve trip distribution models.

Lecture Schedule

Week	Date	Topic
Week-1	Sept. 7, 2005	Urban transportation challenges
Week-2	Sept. 14, 2005	Urban transportation planning
Week-3	Sept. 21, 2005	Planning methods: Transport data and surveys
Week-4	Sept. 28, 2005	Trip generation modelling - Productions
Week-5	Oct. 5, 2005	Trip generation modelling - Attractions
Week-6	Oct. 12, 2005	Trip distribution modelling
Week-7	Oct. 19, 2005	Mid Term Exam
Week-8	Oct. 26, 2005	Mode choice models -1
Week-9	Nov. 2, 2005	Mode choice models - 2
Week-10	Nov. 9, 2005	Traffic assignment models
Week-11	Nov. 16, 2005	Dynamic assignment models
Week-12	Nov. 23, 2005	Limitations of transportation planning
Week-13	Nov. 30, 2005	Project evaluation & decision-making

Tutorial Schedule

Week	Date	Topic
Week-1	Sept. 8, 2005	Introduction to GIS and TransCAD
Week-2	Sept. 15, 2005	Spatial analysis in TransCAD
Week-3	Sept. 22, 2005	Introduction to Regression Analysis
Week-4	Sept. 29, 2005	Trip generation models in TransCAD
Week-5	Oct. 6, 2005	TAZs, OD matrices, transportation network and analysis
Week-6	Oct. 13, 2005	Trip distribution models in TransCAD
Week-7	Oct. 20, 2005	TBA
Week-8	Oct. 27, 2005	Logistic Regression models
Week-9	Nov 3, 2005	Conditional Logit models
Week-10	Nov. 10, 2005	Traffic assignment: Networks, turn/transfer penalties, etc.
Week-11	Nov. 17, 2005	Traffic assignment (User-Equilibrium model)
Week-12	Nov. 24, 2005	Guest Speaker: Mr. Pierre Tremblay (Québec Ministry of Transportation)
Week-13	Dec. 1, 2005	Student Presentations