Transportation has been one of the essential areas within civil engineering since its early days. In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of ASCE, this paper presents a review of developments in research, education, and practice in transportation engineering. The review is based primarily on the issues of the Journal of Transportation Engineering over the past several decades. Main topics include transportation engineering practice, airport and highway pavements and materials, design and safety, planning and operations, pipelines, technology, and education. Historical appraisals and the current state-of-the-art for these topics are discussed. In conclusion, future directions in transportation engineering as a result of advances in technology and the attendant changing need of the transportation engineering profession in the 21st century are addressed.

This paper discusses an analytical dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) model with the extended capability of performing rolling horizon implementation. This model is formulated as a link-based variational inequality and can be solved efficiently to convergence by a relaxation (diagonalization) algorithm. The rolling horizon mechanism makes this proposed approach a flexible tool in evaluating simulation-based DTA models. According to different assumptions of travelers’ route choice behavior, three different classes of travelers are categorized: fixed (predetermined) route class, stochastic dynamic user-optimal class, and dynamic user-optimal class. Model formulation, steps of the algorithm, and rolling horizon implementation are discussed in detail. Computational examples and results are presented and analyzed.

In this paper, three traveler classes are classified according to different assumptions of travelers’ route choice behavior, including fixed route, stochastic dynamic user optimum, and dynamic user optimum. Note that “multiclass” in this paper refers to travelers’ different realization of traffic conditions, instead of representing vehicle types. The three classes of users are integrated into one dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) model and solved using a newly proposed algorithm. In this paper, variables of link flow and exit flow are represented solely by in-flow. The resulting linear program subproblem in the inner iteration is proved and solved as a typical time-dependent shortest route problem over a physical network. Accordingly, the usually required time-space network expansion in solving DTA models is no longer needed. Computational results from a hypothetical network and the Sioux Falls network are reported and analyzed.

The paper discusses modeling the commercial vehicle choice process as part of a discrete-continuous choice formulation, with the shipment size as the continuous variable, and the type of vehicle as the discrete choice, in the context of a case study. The results indicate that shipment size could be adequately modeled as a function of the trip distance, the type of commodity being transported, and the type of economic activity taking place at the origin and destination of the trip. The choice of the type of vehicle was modeled using a discrete choice formulation with variable choice sets conditioned by the shipment size. Market elasticities were estimated under two different models—a multinomial logit model and the heteroscedastic extreme value (HEV) model. It was found that the HEV model provided a more realistic assessment of the cross-elasticities of choice. The strong role played by the economic activity at the trip origin and destination suggests the need for further exploring the integration of these variables as part of commodity based modeling. Among other things, this has the potential for providing an enhanced representation of the economic linkages that determine freight demand.

Vehicular delay is an excellent tool for evaluating the operation of signalized intersections. This paper presents a methodology for measuring and analyzing stopped delay as well as acceleration and deceleration delay at a traffic signal. Field data were collected at 12 screen lines (or stations) defining a “system” where randomly selected vehicles are traced for about 355 m. Crossing times collected at the screen lines were utilized to estimate vehicle speed, acceleration, and delay of selected vehicles. Results indicated that deceleration and acceleration lengths of “stopped” vehicles varied over a wide range, as did the deceleration and acceleration rates. The average deceleration–acceleration delay was estimated at 11.8 s/veh, which is in good agreement with most reported values in the literature. The delay due to nonstopped vehicles comprises only about 7% of the total delay and can be neglected, while delay estimated from stopped vehicles is about 93% of the total intersection delay. Relationships between delay components were modeled, and the analysis showed a ratio of about 2.0 between the total delay and stopped delay, a ratio that is significantly higher than the 1.3 factor adopted in the 1994 Highway Capacity Manual. The approach delay was estimated at about 85% of the total delay, indicating a significant percentage of total delay takes place downstream of the intersection stop line.

Nonrecurrent congestion caused by highway incidents is a major concern for transportation agencies and millions of road users in most metropolitan areas in the United States. As a low-cost approach to incident management, freeway service patrol programs have gained wide popularity. Although there are many such programs in different parts of the country, there is not much effort to design such programs systematically so that better results can be obtained through efficient use of existing resources. A simulation model has been developed that can be used for designing a new freeway service patrol program configuration as well as improving operations of existing programs. The Hoosier Helper program in northwest Indiana is presented as an example of the model’s application. The information provided in this study would be useful for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of similar patrol programs in other metropolitan areas in Indiana and in other states.

This paper presents efficient solution techniques for the transient wave propagation in a multilayered soil medium due to axisymmetric dynamic loads applied on the surface. Analytical solutions of both displacement and stress fields in the interior of the layered stratum as well as on the surface are derived in the time domain from the elastodynamic equations using a direct method, in which Laplace-Hankel mixed transform and transfer matrix techniques are employed. In addition, an efficient numerical procedure, which utilizes the fast Hankel transform algorithm, is proposed to compute these analytical solutions. The presented solutions can be directly used to determine the transient dynamic responses of the multilayered medium subjected to a suddenly applied falling weight widely used in the nondestructive testing of pavement and layered subgrade systems. Illustrative examples demonstrate that these solutions can be readily computed and provide fairly accurate results.

To develop a rigorous, mechanistic design method for asphalt overlays, one must have a method to accurately determine the response of the overlay system to various load conditions. This paper presents a cutting-edge nonlinear three-dimensional finite-element modeling approach for asphalt overlay analysis, including a viscoelastic constitutive model and realistic traffic and environmental load conditions. These tools were used to analyze a proposed reflective crack control system for Taxiway E at the Greater Peoria Regional Airport (GPRA), involving a base-isolating interlayer mixture used in conjunction with a glass-fiber reinforcement layer. The use of a base-isolating interlayer below the asphalt overlay was found to greatly reduce tensile and shear stresses in the asphalt overlay. Based upon expected critical cooling events and design aircraft at GPRA, critical overlay and interlayer stresses were found to be predominantly load associated. The base-isolating interlayer was predicted to develop localized stresses in the vicinity of the existing crack well beyond the yield threshold, based upon linear viscoelastic analysis. This suggests the importance of designing a tough, ductile interlayer mixture that can tolerate localized yielding under repeated load applications.

Every year, large amounts of pavement deicing chemicals are used for snow and ice control on Canadian highways and airports. Until recently, urea had been the only pavement deicing chemical in use at Canadian airports, but due to recent concerns about the impact of this deicer on the environment, consideration has been given to replacing it with more environmentally friendly deicers. Concerns have also been expressed regarding the impact of road salts, which are used exclusively on highways but not airfields, on the environment. However, before substituting these conventional deicers with new ones, the potential deleterious effects of the new deicers on the pavement need to be quantified and compared with those of the conventional deicers. This paper presents an investigation to compare the destructive effect of newly introduced deicing chemicals such as potassium acetate and sodium formate, with urea and ordinary road salts on the durability of pavement construction aggregates and asphalt concrete when subjected to freeze-thaw cycles while submerged in solutions of different concentrations. The destructive effect of each deicer on aggregates was determined in terms of percent weight loss due to breakdown. For pavement samples, it was quantified in terms of weight and density loss, change in mechanical properties, variation in the penetration of recovered asphalt, and variation in the gradation of recovered aggregates. The test results showed that for all deicers the critical concentration, the one that caused the greatest damage to the aggregate, was in the 1–2% range, and for all deicers the quartzite aggregate suffered more damage than the limestone. It was also found that the road salt produced comparable damage to that caused by other deicers to quartzite, while the damage was significantly less for limestone aggregates. In case of asphalt concrete samples, it was found that conditioning asphalt samples using freeze-thaw cycles in the presence of a deicer solution caused a decrease in the indirect tensile strength and modulus of elasticity and an increase in the penetration values of the recovered asphalt cement. In addition, the test results showed that the maximum damage was caused by urea, while the damage due to the other deicers was comparable to that of distilled water.