Transportation Studies Certificate

For matriculated graduate students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and in the two graduate programs, Urban Planning and Policy Development or Public Policy, at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

A Joint Offering of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the Rutgers School of Engineering

Rutgers University is a leader in transportation research and education. The focus of transportation research and educational activities is in both the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the School of Engineering. In 1991, the National Transit Institute (NTI) was started at Rutgers as a congressional mandate under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. In 1998, the Board of Governors established the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center, which has grown to include the Bicycle-Pedestrian Resource Center, the Safe Routes to School Resource Center, and most recently the New Jersey Travel Independence program. The School of Engineering, through the Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering, has created the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), currently the U.S. Department of Transportation Region 2 Transportation Center, focusing on state-of-good repair, but encompassing safety, security, environmental impacts, and asset management of roads, bridges, and ports. Other research centers include the Rutgers Infrastructure Monitoring and Evaluation Group in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Center for Transportation Safety, Security and Risk at the Bloustein School. Additional faculty throughout the university engage in transportation-related research and are active collaborators with both research center faculty and staff.

Program

The Graduate Certificate in Transportation Studies is cross-disciplinary and administered by the School of Engineering and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. The certificate is open to matriculated graduate students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and in the two graduate programs (Urban Planning and Policy Development, and Public Policy) of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. In general, students will be enrolled at the master’s level and receive the transportation studies certificate signifying completion of the program at graduation. Under some circumstances, doctoral students may be admitted to the certificate program.

Admission

Graduate students interested in pursuing the certificate in transportation studies apply to the co-director of the program from their respective unit. In general, students in good academic standing pursuing a degree will be admitted to the certificate program. Students must exhibit proficiency in basic statistical skills and quantitative methods as demonstrated by successful completion of appropriate undergraduate or graduate courses. A course grade of B or better in a relevant course demonstrates proficiency.

Certificate Requirements

Students must maintain an overall grade-point average of 3.0 in order to graduate. If a student’s grade-point average is below a 3.0 at the end of a semester, the student will have one semester to improve the average to 3.0 or greater. During the semester, the student will be on probation. Additionally, a student cannot graduate with more than three courses (9 credits) with grades of C+ or below.

Course offerings

Below is a listing of the core courses offered in both the Bloustein School and the School of Engineering. These may not be offered every year, so students should plan their schedule after consulting faculty in the respective programs.

School of Engineering Courses:

• 16:180:531 Traffic Engineering
• 16:180:532 Transportation Planning
• 16:180:533 Traffic Operations
• 16:180:536 Transportation System Analysis
• 16:180:537 Intelligent Transportation Systems
• 16:180:548(S) Infrastructures Management Systems
• 16:180:551 Railroad Transportation System
• 16:180:552 Engineering Risk Analysis in Transportation Systems
• 16:180:554 Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure
• 16:180:555 Railway Track Engineering and Safety

Bloustein School Courses:

• 34:970:550 Introduction to Transportation (Fall)
• 34:970:551 Transportation and Land Use (Spring)
• 34:970:552 Transportation and the Environment (Fall, every other year)
• 34:970:553 Methods of Transportation Planning (Spring)
• 34:970:554 Transportation Economics and Finance (Spring, every other year)
• 34:970:556 Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning (Fall, every other year)
• 34:970:558 Public Transit Planning and Management (Fall)
• 34:970:560 Freights and Ports (Spring)
• 34:970:627 Hazard Mitigation Planning: Prevention, Resilience, & Sustainability (Spring)
• 34:970:666 Transportation and Equity (Fall, every other year)

It is highly recommended that students take a course in Geographic Information Systems. Engineering students may substitute this for one other Bloustein School course in the list above, but must still take at least one transportation course from the Bloustein School offerings. These can also satisfy the methods requirement of the certificate.

• 34:970:591 Introduction to GIS for Planning and Public Policy
• 34:970:592 Topics in GIS

Core Transportation Faculty

School of Engineering

Hao Wang, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Vehicle-pavement-environment interaction, multi-scale and multi-physics modeling, sustainable infrastructure material and life-cycle assessment and analysis

Peter Jin, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Transportation Engineering, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Traffic Operations, Traffic Sensing, Traffic Flow theory and Network Modeling, Urban Data Analytics

Xiang Liu, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Transportation safety and risk analysis, freight operations and logistics, rail transportation and engineering, transportation systems modeling

Ali Maher, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Technology
Director, Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation
Soil/site improvement, soil composite materials, geosynthetics, environmental geotechnology

Hani Nassif, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Infrastructure health monitoring, bridge engineering, reliability and structural safety

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

Robert Noland, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Director of the Voorhees Transportation Center, Director PhD Program in Planning and Public Policy
Transport policy, environmental impacts, travel behavior, non-motorized transport, safety analysis, energy and climate change, transport economics

Kelcie Ralph, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Travel behavior of special populations, Causes and consequences of the decline in driving among young adults

Michael Smart, Associate Professor of Urban Planning
Urban modeling, GIS, immigrant neighborhoods

Will Payne, Assistant Professor in Geographic Information Science
Urban geography, spatial data science, critical and feminist GIS, food studies, gentrification

Wenwen Zhang, Assistant Professor in Informatics
Urban land use and transportation interaction, innovative/disruptive transportation technology, urban modeling/simulation, sustainable development, data analytics and visualization in planning