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DEVELOPMENT OF A LARGE-SCALE TRANSPORTATION COURSE | ||||
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Sarah Root, Ph.D.
July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2010
This proposal is to develop a three-credit graduate course about large-scale optimization, with specific focus
on transportation and logistics systems. This is important since many companies with large-scale transportation
networks employ a large number of our graduates. This course will help to better equip our graduates for these
positions, as well as helping to further equip our graduate students to complete high-quality research on
transportation and logistics systems. There is currently no course offered by the UA to focus on such issues,
and very few nationwide. To develop this course, we will first collect and analyze syllabi of related courses
taught at other institutions. In addition, we will collaborate with industry contacts such as colleagues at
JB Hunt to identify skills and topics that are important to include the course. This information along with
insights from the literature will be combined to form the backbone of the course content. We will also use
these colleagues’ expertise to develop a semester-long project that students will work on. This project will
be designed to highlight the challenges inherent in solving real-world, large-scale transportation optimization
problems. In addition to teaching our students technical skills, this course will also expose students to
transportation-related career opportunities they may not have considered prior to taking the course. By
focusing a portion of the course explicitly on rural transportation systems, this will help raise the awareness
of the students in the course and help equip them to consider the opportunities and challenges posed by rural
transportation systems throughout their careers. As a result of this course, our students should be better
prepared to model, analyze, and solve large-scale transportation and logistics problems that arise in industry
both in their research and upon graduation.
TRB Keywords: Education: Graduate Study; General Principles of Mathematics: Mathematical Models; Planning and
design: Planning: Planning Stages
Product: In Progress (MBTC DOT - 9312)
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