Transportation Studies Certificate

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

Background

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 a U.S. Department of Transportation National 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.

The 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.

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Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy students please contact:

Professor Robert Noland
Director, Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
33 Livingston Avenue, Rm. 449
Civic Square Building (downtown NB)
(848) 932-2859
email: rnoland@rutgers.edu

Contact for School of Engineering students:
Professor Hani Nassif
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
96 Frelinghuysen Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854
(732) 445-4414
email: nassif@rutgers.edu

Certificate Requirements

Students pursuing the certificate must take five transportation courses, selecting at least one from either the School of Engineering or the Bloustein School. In general, this means that Bloustein School students are required to take at least one School of Engineering course, while Engineering students must take at least one course in the Bloustein School. The courses taken for certificate credit will count toward the degree program in which the student is enrolled. Students must obtain a grade of B or better in all courses that count towards completion of the certificate. Transfer credits do not meet the requirements of the certificate, all courses must be completed at Rutgers.

Occasional seminars and presentations take place in both programs on transportation-related topics. Students completing the certificate are expected to attend these events.

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.

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.

School of Engineering – Core Transportation Faculty

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

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

Trefor P. Williams, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Construction management, computer aided analysis, expert systems

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

Robert Noland, 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

Paul Larrousse, Director of the National Transit Institute
Public transit management, operation, planning, and policy

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, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Urban modeling, GIS, immigrant neighborhoods

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