1.041
Transportation: Foundations and Methods
Covers core analytical and numerical methods for modeling, planning, operations, and control of transportation systems. Traffic flow theory, vehicle dynamics and behavior, numerical integration and simulation, graphical analysis. Properties of delays, queueing theory. Resource allocation, optimization models, linear and integer programming. Autonomy in transport, Markov Decision Processes, reinforcement learning, deep learning. Applications drawn broadly from land, air, and sea transport; private and public sector; transport of passengers and goods; futuristic, modern, and historical. Hands-on computational labs. Linear algebra background is encouraged but not required. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Spring 2007 · Frameworks and Models in Engineering Systems / Engineering System Design
Topics
- Systems: Classes of systems (technical, sociotechnical, engineering systems)
- Systems: Sociotechnical systems and introduction to complexity
- Systems: Complexity and more, with focus on uncertainty
- Project: Introduction to Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF), the big issues and questions, introduction to resources
- Systems: CLIOS process
- Systems: CLIOS process (cont.)
- Project: Review of P1 and instructor synthesis of P1; getting organized for the project work; at end of this class, students will have formed into working groups
- Systems: Critical Contemporary Issues (CCI)
- Systems: What is design? What do we mean by a system design?
- Systems: More on system design, the design aspects of the CLIOS process
- Project: Class discussion on design concepts for the SNF project, system review
- Systems: Models and frameworks
- Systems: Risk assessment (cont.)
- Project: Team meetings to select strategic alternatives
- Project: Team meeting with Department of Energy secretary to finalize strategic alternatives
- Systems: CLIOS stage 3 — implementation
- Systems: Scenario planning
- Project: Team meetings with Department of Energy secretary to review progress and discuss final report outline
- Systems: System dynamics 101
- Project: Rehearsal of final presentations
- Project final presentation
- Class summary, systems recap, student evaluations
Readings
- SES #: 2 · TOPICS: Systems: Classes of systems (technical, sociotechnical, engineering systems) · READINGS: Churchman, Charles West. “Thinking.” Chapter 1 in The Systems Approach . New York, NY: Delacorte Press, 1979. ISBN: 9780385289986.
- Forrester, Jay W. “Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems.” Technology Review 73, no. 3 (1971): 52-68.
- “Nuclear Power: Half Life.” The Economist , November 11, 2006, pp. 81.
- Howe, Peter J. “Undersea Cable Could Bring ‘Green’ Power to Hub.” The Boston Globe , February 14, 2007.
- Baird, Andrew. “False Hopes and Natural Disasters.” The New York Times , December 26, 2006.
- Frank, Thomas. “TSA to Track Rail Shipments with Toxic Cargo.” USA Today , January 22, 2007.
- Emery, Theo, and Matthew L. Wald. “Chemical Train Derails in Kentucky, Evacuations Are Ordered.” The New York Times , January 17, 2007.
- Sussman, Joseph. “Models and Frameworks.” Chapter 10 in Introduction to Transportation Systems . Norwood, MA: Artech House Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9781580531412.
- ———. “Modeling Concepts.” Chapter 11 in Introduction to Transportation Systems . Norwood, MA: Artech House Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9781580531412.
- Morgan, Granger. “Risk Analysis and Management.” Scientific American 269, no. 1 (1993): 32-38.
- Bohnenblust, Hans. “Risk-based Decision Making in the Transportation Sector.” In Quantified Societal Risk and Policy Making . Edited by Richard Jorissen and P. J. Stallen. New York, NY: Springer, 1998. ISBN: 9780792349556.
- Perrow, Charles. “Complexity, Coupling, and Catastrophe.” Chapter 3 in Normal Accidents: Living with High-risk Technologies . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780691004129.
- 19 · Project: Team meeting with Department of Energy secretary to finalize strategic alternatives · Wald, Matthew L. “A New Vision for Nuclear Waste.” Technology Review 107, no. 10 (2004): 38-44.
- 20 · Systems: CLIOS stage 3 — implementation · Freeman, R. Edward, Andrew C. Wicks, and Bidhan Parmar. “Stakeholder Theory and ‘The Corporate Objective Revisited.’” Organization Science 15, no. 3 (2004): 364-369.
- “New York’s Transport: Tunnel Vision.” The Economist , April 19, 2007.
- Holley, Joe. “Chauncey Starr; Physicist Wrote Noted Paper on Everyday Risks.” The Boston Globe , April 23, 2007.
- “Government Renews Focus on Cross-Nevada Rail Line to Nuclear Dump.” Jackson Hole Star Tribune , April 27, 2007.
- Wack, Pierre. “Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead.” Harvard Business Review 63, no. 5 (1985): 73-89.
- Drucker, Peter F. “Managing Oneself.” Harvard Business Review 77, no. 2 (1999): 64-74.
- National Research Council. Risk and Decisions: About Disposition of Transuranic and High-Level Radioactive Waste . Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780309095495.
- National Research Council. Nuclear Wastes: Technologies for Separations and Transmutation . Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780309052269.
- Ackoff, Russell L. “The Art and Science of Mess Management.” Interfaces 11, no. 1 (1978): 20-26.
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as IDS.075[J] Subject meets with 1.200[J] , 11.544[J] , IDS.675[J] Prereq: ( 1.010A and ( 1.00 or 1.000 )) or permission of instructor U (Spring) 3-1-8 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2007
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.