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Transportation is an area of knowledge with specific charateristics and decisions have to be based on global approaches. Solutions for the mobility of people and logistics influence the quality of the environment, land use, social cohesion and the economic development of communities.

The course provides fundamental knowledge of relevant concepts of transport engineering, economics, planning and policy by using day-to-day phenomena as an exploration model, and trigger future-oriented discussions on possibility of using the concepts in problem mitigation.

Students have to understand the main concepts and issues related to transport systems. 

Knowledge: The main concepts to understand transportation will cover historical developments, tecnological solutions, market organization and regulation of each transport mode.

Comprehension: The student should be able to inderstand the solutions to solve mobility problems, understand how markets work, what can be changed with regulation and where should investment go to maximize the social value.

Application: The student should be able to formalize a process of decision of a transportation project.

Analysis: The student should be able to understand the need of a broad view in this domain of knowledge.

Sinthesis: The student should be able to formulate a transport problem.

Evaluation: the student should be able to generate concrete ideas, evaluate the result of decisions and suggest solutions in relations to mobility problems of people and movement of freight.

Creation of Value, Transport Systems and Economic Development - importance of transport networks in economic development throughout history, the evolution of innovation in the transport systems and their interconnection with economic growth.

Transport and Location - game theory, Nash equilibrium and Hotelling´s theory and their relevante in planning.

Supply: Network and Interfaces - Network composition. Importance of connectedeness to a network and network continuity in the performance of transport operations.

Demand: Demand Management - Derived demand, congestion and demand management techniques.

Consumer Behaviour: Travel Demand - Unsustainability of growing demand for travel and its effects on daily life.

Producer Behaviour: Globalization and Consolidation - the globalization and consolidation of transport markets in large corporations and impacts in the organization of the networks of transport systems and global trade.

Governance - Public/Private Management - regulatory forms: operations in private and public organizational models.

Innovative responses to current challenges - the role of the transport innnovations and new economic mindsets (sharing and circular economy) in mitigating environmental and social issues. 

On the future - emerging paradigms (big data, autonomous vehicles, drones, pricing life cycle cost, environmental governance). 

Classes present transport concepts and open up discussions on various topics and teach technical skills. Field trips complement the theoretical knowledge gained.

Students are expected to carry on research on different and complementary topics between each other and prepare individual essays. In the oral presentations of the essays all students are involved in the discussion.

The student should be able to formulate a problem of transport. The student should be able to formalize a process of decision on a transportation project. The student should be able to generate concrete ideas, evaluate the outcome of decisions and propose solutions for issues of mobility of people and movement of goods.