This 15 point Masters paper is designed as an extension from undergraduate courses in Transportation Engineering and primarily focuses on the Road Safety and the Traffic Operational aspects of Two-Lane Highways. It is designed for personnel within industry and to those wanting to enter the transportation industry with a much better understanding of the factors and principles involved in planning, designing, operating and maintaining ‘safe’ highways and the at grade intersections with rail systems. It is a special course in the Masters programme in Transportation Engineering as it will be guest lectured by Professor Emeritus John Morrall, of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada.
The course takes a Safe Systems approach and begins by understanding the human vulnerability to physical forces, reviews operational problems on Two-Lane Highways and Level of Service Measures and then looks specifically at the planning, designing and maintaining of highways from the pillars of the New Zealand Safe Highway System. Road Safety strategy documents from recent Government settings and their updates will be considered (eg. Waka Kotahi (New Zealand Transport Agency) Road to Zero Strategy). The course will also consider future highway systems and their safety implications and specific Highway Safety issues that will include the evaluation of Passing and Turning Improvements, Two-Lane Highway Consistency, Crash prediction modelling and Collision Mitigation measures and the at grade integration of road and rail engineering systems. Highway Pavement surfacing characteristics and Skid Resistance, materials and engineering test methods will also be evaluated to ensure safe pavement surface designs and operations. A range of ‘real-life’ examples will be used for the purposes of integrating theory with professional practice – this will include case studies and project work.