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Educating Students for ITS Careers: Are Universities Meeting the Challenge?
(February 6, 2014)
Issues and Experience in Teaching ITS
Presenter: Mohammed Hadi
Presenter's Org: Florida International University
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All the slides in this presentation are branded with the Florida International University (FIU) logo.
Slide 1: Issues and Experience in Teaching ITS
By
Mohammed Hadi, Ph.D., PE
Florida International University
February 6, 2014
Slide 2: Need for Enhanced ITS Curriculum
- A comprehensive approach to teaching ITS is needed
- Based on ITS industry needs
- More data and research is needed to further delineate industry needs for ITS skills
- Only aspects of ITS are covered well in university programs
- Additional ITS concepts need to be incorporated
- ITS is a very diverse field but there are concepts that are cross cutting
- Planning and design should be covered but there is also increased focus on operation and management
Slide 3: Need for ITS Education Resources
- There has not been good resources to teach ITS
- New resources are being produced by the USDOT PCB program (ITS ePrimer, case studies, etc.)
- Available resources need to be supplemented by additional materials when used for student education
- Need informative and interesting teaching aids to engage students in ITS
- A semester-long case study may be useful similar to a capstone class project
Slide 4: Incorporation of ITS Teaching
- ITS is becoming an overarching field
- Should ITS be taught in specific ITS course(s) or should it be covered in existing undergraduate and graduate courses?
- At least one graduate level ITS course should be offered?
- ITS materials can also be incorporated in basic undergrad courses and graduate courses
- Signal control, traffic flow theory, traffic operation, transit operations, ports, and planning
- Difficult to fit ITS education in undergrad programs
Slide 5: Example Questions – Job Interview (Week of January 20th, 2014)
- What is ITS? Can you list some ITS examples you know.
- What is ETC? What are the components of an ETC system?
- What’s the ITS component of managed lanes? How to decide the toll rate of the managed lanes?
- What is TMC?
- What does NTCIP refer to?
- What is ITS Cabinet?
- What are the communication methods between the field detector and TMC?
- What is NEC? (National Electrical Code)
- What is the different between RJ 11 and RJ 45? How many wires in RJ?
- What is Voltage Drop?
Slide 6: ITS Course Offering at FIU
- Graduate level course offered since 2003
- Undergraduate students were allowed in the class
- Based on industry experience
- 15-25 students per offering
- Offered also through distance learning
- Two tests and one semester project
- No Text book
- Next time to offer in Fall 2014 will be revised to incorporate new USDOT PCB materials
Slide 7: Covered Topics
- Introduction
- ITS Functional Areas
- System Engineering and ITS Architecture
- ITS Standards
- ITS Evaluation, Methods and Tools
- Communications
- Detectors and CCTV cameras
- DMS, HAR, ATIS
- Incident Management
- Managed Lanes
- Ramp Metering
- Dynamic speed limit/speed harmonization
- Connected Vehicles
Slide 8: Other ITS Education Activities
- Summer class that address Advanced Applications
- Offered twice in the past two years
- Covered TSM&O, ICM, Signal Controller and Cabinet, Port Operations, Engineering Management
- ITS related materials incorporated in other courses
- Speaker series, webinar participation, and field visits
- Student participation in ITS lab research activities
- Internships and employments at TMCs and other ITS and operation agencies
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