PE Transportation study guide
PE Transportation · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) Civil: Transportation exam is one of the NCEES PE examinations, offered in the Civil: Transportation discipline. It tests for a minimum level of competency in transportation engineering and is designed for engineers who have gained a minimum of four years of post-college work experience in their chosen engineering discipline. The PE Transportation study guide has 6 sections and about 1,824 words.
01Traffic Engineering: Capacity, LOS, and Signal Timing
Level of service (LOS) is the backbone of this domain, and every facility type uses a different performance measure. Freeway LOS comes from density (pc/mi/ln); signalized intersection LOS comes from control delay (s/veh); unsignalized intersections and roundabouts use delay as well; weaving segments use density and speed.
339 words, about 2 min02Geometric Design: Sight Distance and Curves
Nearly every geometric value - lane and shoulder width, superelevation, curve radius, clear zone, vertical curve length - is a function of design speed, not posted speed or operating speed. Candidates must know three sight distances: stopping sight distance (SSD), decision sight distance (DSD, longer, for complex or unexpected maneuvers), and passing sight distance (two-lane highways).
342 words, about 2 min03Transportation Planning: Demand Forecasting
Trip generation estimates productions and attractions using ITE-style rates (per dwelling unit, per 1,000 sf, per employee) or regression equations; trip distribution allocates them with a gravity or deterrence model; mode choice converts person trips to vehicle trips using logit/utility models; assignment loads vehicles onto the network, often with a BPR volume-delay function. Model validation compares estimated versus counted volumes and screenlines.
275 words, about 1 min04Traffic Safety Analysis: Rates, SPFs, and Empirical Bayes
Crash frequency alone rewards high-volume sites, so analysts also compute crash rates. For a segment, rate per 100 million vehicle-miles = (A × 100,000,000)/VMT; for an intersection, crashes per million entering vehicles (MEV) use total entering volume as exposure.
282 words, about 1 min05Pavement Design and Materials
The design equation relates traffic (W18, in 18-kip ESALs), reliability (ZR × S0), change in serviceability (ΔPSI), and drainage to the required structural number SN. Layer thicknesses then satisfy SN = a1D1 + a2D2m2 + a3D3m3, where a is the layer coefficient, D the thickness in inches, and m the drainage coefficient (applied to base and subbase, not the surface).
286 words, about 1 min06Construction, Maintenance of Traffic, and Preservation
A temporary traffic control zone has four components: advance warning, transition, activity area (with buffer space), and termination. Merging taper length is L = W × S for speeds of 40 mph or less, and L = W × S²/60 for 45 mph and above, where W is the offset width in feet and S the posted or operating speed.
300 words, about 2 min