Transportation Engineering
Our transportation engineering classes and research feature dedicated laboratory space, specialized computer equipment, and well-published professors.
Dedicated Lab Space
The BYU Transportation Laboratory facilitates collaboration on transportation research in the areas of safety, traffic operations, modern mobility, and long-range transportation modeling. The Lab was originally established in 2008 and relocated to the newly constructed Engineering Building as the showcase lab for the Civil and Construction Engineering Department in 2018. A major feature of the laboratory is the traffic operations observation center. Through a partnership with the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), students and faculty can access video feeds for all the closed-circuit traffic monitoring cameras in the state and display the feeds on eight large overhead monitors. The computers in the Lab are directly connected to UDOT’s Traffic Operations Center (TOC), allowing student researchers to view the traffic signal timing patterns for all UDOT signals in the state, and providing access to data collected through the signal detectors for UDOT’s Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures (ATSPM) system as well as other transportation-related data across the state.
Specialized Computer Equipment
- All civil engineering students have access to advanced engineering software, such as RISA-2D, RISA-3D, SeismoMatch, and many others
- Transportation specific software includes:
- HCS
- MATSim
- PTV Vissim
- PTV Vistro
- PTV Visum
- QRSII/GNE
- SimTraffic
- Synchro
- Extensions to MATSim software have been developed by BYU to substantially impact transportation research in the fields of noise and pollution
- Researchers at BYU have access to all CCTV cameras owned and operated by UDOT, as well as 10 countCAM traffic counting cameras owned by the lab itself
- The Office of Research Computing provides free supercomputing resources to faculty and student researchers at BYU
University Support Personnel
BYU has a dedicated librarians for each department within the university. This is very helpful for performing literature reviews and conducting research.
In addition, our transportation professors within the department are well-published and easily accessible. Dr. Macfarlane, Dr. Schultz, and students work on research that actually makes a difference in the world. For example, the BYU safety modeling results are used by UDOT Regions to prioritize safety funding each year.
Dr. Grant S. Schultz is a recognized member of the safety and academic community. He is the current chair of the TRB Standing Committee on Access Management and a Member of the TRB Standing Committee on Safety Performance and Analysis where he serves on the Executive Committee with responsibility over conferences and meetings. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed products and has presented the findings of his research at more than 55 meetings around the world. He is also a former Chair of the ITE Transportation Education Council and recipient of the Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award in 2014.
Dr. Gregory S. Macfarlane is a pioneer in the use of large, commercially available datasets to understand travel behavior and develop data-driven models of infrastructure demand. He is particularly interested in developing utility-based accessibility metrics as a means of understanding the impacts of transportation facilities and the built environment on physical and mental health. He is a member of the TRB's Standing Committee on Transportation Demand Forecasting and since 2020 the chief editor of tfresource.org. In 2022 he was named the Most Influential Faculty member by the graduating class of Civil Engineering students.
