Transportation Engineering Curriculum: Analytic Review of the Literature

Transportation engineering curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels are critical to the development of technical competency in future transportation engineering professionals - those who will be responsible for the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of safe and efficient transportation systems. This paper provides an analytic review of journal articles and refereed conference papers addressing how transportation engineering curricula have changed over time. The literature review found 51 articles for analysis, with an increased frequency of those publications over time. Curriculum issues described in these papers include how transportation fits broadly within engineering programs and, more specifically, within civil engineering programs, which topics are addressed in transportation courses, and how these courses attend to stakeholder needs. This analytic review of the literature provides a resource for transportation engineering educators, administrators, and researchers to consider how transportation curricular issues have been treated in the literature historically as the community continues to develop and implement the transportation engineering curricula of the future. The findings will inform transportation engineering educators of the state of the practice in transportation engineering curricula.