Highway engineeringHighway engineering (also known as roadway engineering and street engineering) is a professional engineering discipline branching from the civil engineering subdiscipline of transportation engineering that involves the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of roads, highways, streets, bridges, and tunnels to ensure safe and effective transportation of people and goods. Highway engineering became prominent towards the latter half of the 20th century after World War II.
Road surfaceA road surface (English), or pavement (American), is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, macadam, hoggin, cobblestone and granite setts were extensively used, but these have mostly been replaced by asphalt or concrete laid on a compacted base course. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the 20th century and are of two types: metalled (hard-surfaced) and unmetalled roads.
RoadA road is a thoroughfare for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, whose primary function is to serve as public spaces, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of roads, including parkways, avenues, controlled-access highways (freeways, motorways, and expressways), tollways, interstates, highways, thoroughfares, and local roads.
Transportation engineeringTransportation engineering or transport engineering is the application of technology and scientific principles to the planning, functional design, operation and management of facilities for any mode of transportation in order to provide for the safe, efficient, rapid, comfortable, convenient, economical, and environmentally compatible movement of people and goods transport. The planning aspects of transportation engineering relate to elements of urban planning, and involve technical forecasting decisions and political factors.
Road traffic safetyRoad traffic safety refers to the methods and measures used to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passengers, horse riders, and passengers of on-road public transport (mainly buses and trams). Best practices in modern road safety strategy: The basic strategy of a Safe System approach is to ensure that in the event of a crash, the impact energies remain below the threshold likely to produce either death or serious injury.
Controlled-access highwayA controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms include throughway (or thruway) and parkway. Some of these may be limited-access highways, although this term can also refer to a class of highways with somewhat less isolation from other traffic. In countries following the Vienna convention, the motorway qualification implies that walking and parking are forbidden.
HighwayA highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or a translation for autobahn, autoroute, etc. According to Merriam Webster, the use of the term predates the 12th century. According to Etymonline, "high" is in the sense of "main". In North American and Australian English, major roads such as controlled-access highways or arterial roads are often state highways (Canada: provincial highways).
Road surface markingRoad surface marking is any kind of device or material that is used on a road surface in order to convey official information; they are commonly placed with road marking machines (also referred to as road marking equipment or pavement marking equipment). They can also be applied in other facilities used by vehicles to mark parking spaces or designate areas for other uses. In some countries and areas (France, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia etc.), road markings are conceived as horizontal traffic signs, as opposed to vertical traffic signs placed on posts.
Price of oilThe price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level. The global price of crude oil was relatively consistent in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
Traffic engineering (transportation)Traffic engineering is a branch of civil engineering that uses engineering techniques to achieve the safe and efficient movement of people and goods on roadways. It focuses mainly on research for safe and efficient traffic flow, such as road geometry, sidewalks and crosswalks, cycling infrastructure, traffic signs, road surface markings and traffic lights. Traffic engineering deals with the functional part of transportation system, except the infrastructures provided.
