Our society is highly mobile and increasingly dependent on transportation facilities for its economic, social and recreational well-being. From shipments of raw materials and finished goods to personal travel, our national transportation system exerts significant influence on our quality of life. Civil engineers respond to this need through the planning, design, construction, and operation of facilities for all modes of transportation, including highway, rail, air, water and mass transit.

Diverse career challenges range from designing a new highway to planning an airport facility, from developing computerized traffic surveillance and control systems to investigating the feasibility of mass transit for urban areas, and from directing the rehabilitation of an urban freeway to implementing a high-speed rail line.

Graduate Study

Providing for the safe and efficient movement of persons and goods continues to be a great challenge to civil engineers. This challenge is heightened by current concerns of the deteriorating roadway infrastructure, rapidly developing urban communities, intelligent transportation systems and increasing safety to all roadway users. The transportation engineering graduate program at Auburn University is specifically designed to offer students the background required to address the needs of this specialized field.

The objective of the program is to prepare students for careers in facility and systems design, transportation operations and management, traffic safety analysis and transportation planning. The courses stress practical applications to enable students to be immediately productive in their chosen career. The practical applications are reinforced with the requisite theory to enable a solid foundation of the engineering fundamentals and an overall understanding of contemporary transportation problems. Participation in independent research and interaction with practicing professionals is encouraged at the M.S. level and required at the Ph.D. level.

The transportation program also administers the Alabama Technology Transfer Center. The center is Alabama's Local Technical Assistance Program which provides aid to local transportation agencies. This program focuses on meeting the technical education needs of local transportation officials. Visible elements of the program include continuing education seminars, quarterly newsletters, publications and a video library.

The department also has an active student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Graduate student participation is strongly encouraged and provides students opportunities to interact with practicing professionals through state and regional ITE meetings.

Faculty in Transportation Engineering

• Rod E. Turochy, James Madison Hunnicutt Professor in Traffic Engineering and director of the Alabama Technology Transfer Center (Transportation)
• Jeffrey LaMondia, associate professor
• Huaguo Zhou, professor
• Brian L. Bowman, professor emeritus
• Robert L. Vecellio, associate professor emeritus