Urban Road Networks is part of 8th semester courses. It is compulsory for the students at the Transportation Planning and Engineering cycle. Lectures include design principles of urban road networks and more specifically of junctions (at grade or not), traffic signals, road signs and parking design and management. The course also includes parking counts by the students. Based on these counts students analyse the parking characteristics and the design of a parking area and optimize the signalization at an individual junction. The course foresees four hours of theory and exercises every week. During the exercises practical examples of applications are developed and in general the overall understanding of the course is assisted. It should be noted that there is no clear distinction between theory and exercises, since the theory relies on exercises and exercises deal with questions about the theory. Students consist of one class.
# | Title | Description | Hours |
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1 | Introduction | Definitions Urban transport systems Traffic control systems in urban networks Parking and traffic management | 1Χ4=4 |
2 | Traffic capacity and signalisation in urban road networks | Introduction - signalisation conditions Definitions - basic signalization principles Saturation flow Two-phase signaling: calculation saturation flow Intermediate green time Calculation of critical lane groups Optimization of signalization of an isolated junction Signaling a T-type intersection with pedestrians Coordinated signalization of an artery Network signaling systems Unsigned intersections | 5Χ4=20 |
3 | Parking | Introduction - Definitions Parking characteristics - Surveys Parking places characteristics Multilevel parking stations - Bus stations Construction - Operation Design and operation of parking stations Characteristics of parking on the road Parking economics | 5Χ4=20 |
4 | Road signs | Road signs and work-zones Road markings | 2Χ4=8 |
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
Teaching methods | Lectures Solutions of exercises Parking counts and submission of 3 individual projects |
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Teaching media | Presentations through Power Point slides Microsoft Excel calculations |
Computer and software use | Students solve simple exercises during the lesson, with the support of the Professor |
Assignments (projects, reports) | Students create groups of 3 members and carry out parking counts at predefined zones of Athens. Based on these counts, the first two projects concern the analysis of parking characteristics and the design of a parking area. The third project concerns the optimization of signalization at an individual junction. Each student submits the three projects individually and is undertaking an oral exam on all of them. |