CE 3730: Sustainable Urban Dynamics

Civil and Environmental Engineering                        CE 3730: Sustainable Urban Dynamics

RESEARCH PROJECT

Assessment of an Urban Transportation System of a Metropolitan Area

Problem Statement

The population working and/or residing in Urban Metropolitan Areas is continuously increasing. The corresponding dynamics need to be accommodated by urban transportation systems. However, most existing systems were planned to answer to different goals and to realize unrelated objectives depending on the metropolitan area in question. Based on the above, the objective of this project is to evaluate the sustainability of an urban transportation system of the student’s choice and propose the steps that may be taken to improve the corresponding system performance.

Schedule and Arrangement

This research  project  needs to be conducted individually. The metropolitan area of interest should be reported on Wednesday September the 13th  to Professor Hamdar. The students are to perform an initial review of the literature making sure that enough information is available to conduct the needed research tasks. Proper referencing is to be adopted. Two in-class sessions dedicated to discussing the research findings and the students’ progress will be scheduled during the months of October and November. At the end of the semester (last week of classes), a full report is due and each student will make an oral presentation related to his/her evaluation of the system and the suggested measures to improve it in terms of sustainability. Further details on the report and  presentation  formats will be provided  to the students at a later stage. For more guidance  and  better  time  management,  the  following  milestones  for  the  term  project  are provided:

•   September 12: declaration city of interest key references (1/2- 1 page)

•    October 3: specific topic/area, problem statement and initial work plan (problem faced, boundary of the problem/region in question, sustainability assessment plan) for term project (3-4 pages)

•   October 24:complete literature review and detailed table of content for term project –

including indicators to be used (8-10 pages)

•    November 14: progress report and preliminary results for term project – weaknesses and strength; comparative assessment and possible solutions (10-15 pages)

•   December 3: presentations (20 minutes + 5 minutes for questions)

•   December 10: final report due for term project (20 – 25 pages) / final day of classes

Previous Metropolitan Area Reporting

1.   San Francisco

2.   Sydney

3.   Madrid

4.   Beijing

5.   Boston

6.   Washington DC

7.   Rio De Janeiro

8.   Dubai

9.   Atlanta