This document discusses the importance and role of traffic engineering in transportation project development and operations. It argues that traffic engineering is often neglected and should have the leading role in determining the scope and functional design of transportation projects before construction design. Specifically, it summarizes that traffic engineering is focused on ensuring smooth traffic flow, desired levels of service, safety, and cost-effectiveness for users. However, it notes that in many places traffic engineering is an afterthought and not integrated into the initial planning and design process for highways and other transportation facilities. The document advocates for traffic engineering to have greater leadership and influence over project development.

1. Slide 1
TRAFFIC
ENGINEERING
FUNCTIONS IN THE
STATE GOVERNMENT
by retired ADOT Traffic Engineer
Rudy Kolaja
Introduction

2. Slide 2
Traffic Engineering is the
Functional Design :
 Number of lanes
 Intersection Layout
 Turn Lane Design
 Weaving Sections
 Traffic Signalization
 Traffic Access Control
 Capacity vs. Travel Demand
 Corresponding Level of Service
 User’s Costs
 and many other issues
Traffic Engineering has a very unique position in the
highway development process. It represents the functional
design of highways and all of their elements
It is the tool for the design of roadways, freeways, traffic
interchanges, intersections, traffic signalization in concert
with the roadway intersection geometry, so they provide
adequate travel service to a specific vehicular travel
demand and effective traffic flow.
Traffic Engineering is the discipline, which can be the most
effective in maximizing the return on the highway
development and the highway construction investments. It
can predetermine the successful operation of the traffic
flow over the constructed highway when the project is
constructed. It is the most powerful tool to use in the
service to public.

3. This is the most fundamental definition of traffic
engineering, which should be widely known. Sadly enough it
is not.

4. Slide 3
Traffic Engineering
Neglected &
disrespected in the
highway design process
While it is the most
powerful tool in the
highway design process
It is the highway development and highway
operations discipline, which is very much neglected
and disrespected in the process.
And that is the reason why I prepared this
presentation.

5. Slide 4
Fundamentals of
Traffic
Engineering
Brooklyn
Polytechnic
Institute of NY
Brooklyn
New York, N. Y.
1973, 1990
It was the beginning of the 1970’s, when the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn created the very
first Planning and Engineering Master Program,
where the fundamentals of Traffic Engineering were
published and taught from the draft of the “Traffic
Engineering” textbook.

6. Slide 5
Stamford
Assistant City
Traffic Engineer
It was a very impressive program for me to learn the
traffic engineering theory in a great detail and apply
it first in Stamford, Connecticut in early 1970’s.
However, it was a frightening discovery that my
superiors did not have any notion what it is all about.

7. Slide 6
Fairfax County
Virginia
Traffic
Engineer
The history repeated itself in Fairfax County,
Virginia, where I became the very first County Traffic
Engineer in the year of 1975.

8. Slide 7
Arizona Transportation
Research Center, ASU
Traffic Engineering & Highway
Development Research Program
In the 1981 I was hired by the Arizona Transportation
Research Center, located at the Arizona State
University.
My task was to develop and manage the traffic
engineering and highway development program,
which was federally funded. The very first week of
my endeavor I came to another shocking discovery
about the traffic engineering at the State of Arizona.
There was absolutely no need to perform any
research, which I came to administer at that time,
rather to implement the very fundamental aspects of
Traffic Engineering.

10. Slide 8
Arizona Transportation
Research Center, ASU
The traffic engineering research studies, which were
successfully completed and provide good bases for traffic
operations issues, such as
“Design of Left Turn Signalization”, “Driver’s Behavior at
Signalized Intersections”, Design of Traffic Signal Clearance
Interval”, and others,
one time part of the Traffic Engineering Library ended up in
a garbage can, since that was something we do not get into.

11. Slide 9
MUTCD – Bible of TE ?
The traffic engineering was and still is represented
by the use of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control
Devices, which is being used for the development of
the striping plans, design of signs, and the work zone
traffic control plans.

12. Slide 10
This is being done as the last step in the highway
development, as well the reconstruction and maintenance of
highways.
The main purpose of the traffic engineering was totally non-
existent.
This was the situation more than 30 years ago. Guess what,
this is just about the same level of traffic engineering today.
The highway development process has been always driven
by the available federal funding to be spent on time so we do
not lose it.

13. Slide 11
”Nationally, the traffic
engineers are the last in the
design development
process.”
“Late in the design process,
we are handed a set of
construction documents
and asked to review or
develop maintenance
of traffic plan.”
These are the statements made by the only real
traffic engineer at the Arizona Department of
Transportation, who held the State Traffic
Engineering position for a short time in the year of
1987.

14. Slide 12
Benjamin E. Burritt, P. E.
State Traffic Engineer in 1987
Consistent with my views, the State Traffic Engineer,
Ben Burritt, who I am talking about further stated:

15. Slide 13
Benjamin E. Burritt, P. E.
State Traffic Engineer in 1987
“Functional
design must
precede the
construction
design!”

16. Slide 14
Traffic Engineering Desing Parameters
“In very few progressive organizations, the traffic
engineer establishes the design parameters and
turns them over to the design engineer to translate
the functional design into the engineered design. “
“Unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the
rule and explains why intersections don’t work,
interchanges delay, parking lot confuse, shopping
centers are miserable to access, parking garages
bewilder, etc., etc, etc.”

17. Slide 15
“Traffic Engineering Design
far exceeds the traditional
Value Engineering”
 Accounts for the User’s Cost
 Smooth Traffic Flow
 Desired Level of Service
 Traffic Safety
 Best Transportation Service
 Tort Liability
His final statement in the same letter says:
“Early input from the traffic engineer is extremely cost-
effective, and in my judgment, far exceeds the benefits
associated with the much touted “value engineering”, --
again, a design/build fascination”.
I will add to it:
Properly executed traffic engineering is the best way to
evaluate the transportation alternatives, since it takes into
the account the users cost that is never part of the ADOT
value engineering process.

18. Slide 16
Traffic Engineering
MUST HAVE
The Leading Role in the
Design of any Transportation
Facility
The most effective role in
determination of the scope
of any highway project !!!
Traffic engineering must have, therefore, the leading
role in the design, development, any changes, and
the operations of highways, intersections, and all of
the other roadway elements.
It has the most effective role in determination of the
scope of any highway construction project. It should
be absolutely clear, that the traffic operations design
comes first prior to the Project Assessment
document.
It determines what is to be built, modified, or
reconstructed in order to derive desired outcome of
the construction, which is the effective traffic flow.

19. All of the other highway development disciplines
have to support and facilitate the traffic operations
design, and never compromise it.

20. Slide 17
Mass Transit
There is also a growing concern about the alternative
transportation systems. The reasons seem to vary over
the time and include reduction of ever growing highway
travel, saving energy, development of economic
transportation systems for low income groups, transit
oriented development, or simply development of well
coordinated multimodal transportation system.
This adds an entire huge number of issues related to traffic
engineering designs. This kind of relationships is even more
neglected or often totally non-existent in many parts of this
country, certainly in this state.

21. Slide 18
The Traffic Operations
Engineering as well as the
Transit Operations Design
and Management have the
leading role in what can
provide well functioning
transportation systems.
Center of the Leadership
The Traffic Operations Engineering as well as the
Transit Operations Design and Management have the
leading role in what can provide well functioning
transportation systems.
That is where the center of transportation
leadership needs to be and it is not.

22. Slide 19
$12 Million Bus Stop
I-10 Tunnel
Both Directions of Travel
20 Years
Without that, there are many wrong projects being
built with limited or no benefits at all to serve the
growing travel demand.
Worst of all, many, really many projects represent a
huge waste of funding, because there was no
functional study and design first.

23. Slide 20
$75 million HOV
exclusive ramps
SR 51 to I-10
No HOV vehicles ever !!!

24. Slide 21
Graduate Transportation
Planning & Engineering
Programs
Appoint only these aducated
professionals to the Decision
Making Positions
Traffic Engineering is a
Specialized Profession
It seems nearly impossible to convince someone that
the key leaders of the state transportation agencies,
just like those of the counties and cities, need to be
professionals specifically trained in these disciplines
at graduate transportation programs.
There is no real substitution by civil engineering,
business administration graduates, or even worse by
mining engineering. Where to obtain such training is
another painful subject. There is a very limited
number of really good traffic engineering programs
available in this nation. There are literally no
credible training and transit operations design
programs at all.

26. Slide 22
New Programs:
Topics Program, 1970’s
 Travel Demand Traffic Signal
System, 1970’s
 Growing number of simulation programs
 Accesive number of modeling programs
 Traffic Adaptive Signal System
 Traffic Signal Priority System
 Traffic Calming
 Traffic Diet
 Complete Street System & ITS
 High Capacity Transit, BRT, LRT
 Bicycle Detection and on & on
Instead, we are constantly coming up with new
programs such as

27. Slide 23
Total Street Concept
Sorry, missing a bicycle lane and Parklets.

28. Slide 24
Turning freeway lanes into bicycle lanes
& pedestrian paths
Really ?

29. Slide 25
Bicycle congestion mitigation
This guy is looking for a parklet to connect with
other commuters

30. Slide 26
Bicycle Rapid Transit Alternative
This one may have traveled 30 miles on his bicycle
from home along a freeway and found a covered
parking space at ADOT Engineering building in
Phoenix

31. Slide 27
Self Driving Vehicle Concept ???
2400 veh./hour/lane
75 MPH
L of Service “B”
Is this concept going to fulfill the ADOT Roadway
Design Guideline for 2400 vehicles/hour/lane, 75 MPH
cruising speed and the level of service “B” ?
…..which was on the ADOT books for many years !!!

32. Slide 28
HOV lanes with not more than 5 bus runs in each
direction a day

33. Slide 29
We also spend billions and billions of dollars, on the
Intelligent Transportation Systems,
such as changeable message signs to provide
messages that the sign is being tested, or to call the
511 number for traffic information.
Is that really effective use of public funds ?

34. Slide 30
New funding measures:
Managed lanes
Charging user by miles driven
No need for more funding
Need for effective management
Stop the waste for wrong projects
The latest frightening proposal is the Managed Lanes
(rather the already mismanaged HOV lanes), which
will get its users to pay again for what they already
paid for before.
And finally the ridiculous idea of raising new funding
by charging the public users by the number of miles
driven.
We do not need more and more funding to be totally
wasted on inadequate transportation project design.
There is a better way.

35. Slide 31
Does anybody really study these ???
My suggestion; get to the basics. We do not need
1000+ pages of Highway Capacity Manual, updated
every few years,
we do not need new and new traffic signal manuals,
which are often just poor re-writes of what was
already available to us 40 years ago.

36. Slide 32
Someone would know
how many cars to be in
the highway lane at the
desired level of service
Reading this manual
1965
We need to gather the available limited expertise in
traffic engineering and start development of really
credible graduate programs
teaching the fundamental traffic engineering theory,
transportation planning functions, and most of all
the transit operations design based on expertise of
those who have the real world experience in these
issues.

37. Slide 33
DESIGN OF EFFECTIVE
TRANSIT SYSTEMS
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
2011
Western ITE Conference
In the case of transit, my repeated suggestion is to
learn from the European transit systems design,
which I have talked about at the Western District ITE
Conference in Anchorage, Alaska in 2011 and other
places before.

38. Slide 34
Westbound Approach to 1-10 Tunnel
Phoenix, Arizona
The transportation systems, at least one in the
Phoenix area, is faced with growing bottlenecks,
totally wasteful transit system in the most part, and
no coordination of the highway traffic demand and
the potential transit demand.
The Arizona State Transportation Board just
approved $88 billion, 25-year strategic multimodal
transportation plan. There is no strategy how to
deal with the growing transportation demand, there
is nothing about mass transit at all.
This transportation construction plan would not
stand the scrutiny of traffic engineering. Many of

39. the projects would not be built at all, others, mainly
the construction of new freeways are always being
severely under designed. This is the reason, why we
have our current freeway system looking like a
parking lot every morning and the afternoon.

40. Slide 35
Highway Trips Transit Trips
ORIGIN & DESTINATION STUDY
AM Peak PM Peak
It is time to start being serious about the really
comprehensive transportation study, resulting into a
design of effective transportation system, well
coordinated between highway and potential transit
demand. Only then you can come up with a proper
proposed strategic transportation construction plan
that will really provide satisfactory highway and
mass transit system to be constructed. Such an
approach is never used.
Travel demand is not unlimited. There is a serious
need to find out what the real travel needs are and
what they are going to be in the foreseeable future.

41. Then it is important to design an appropriate
transportation system that will meet those needs.
Accordingly, such a transportation system cannot be
developed by virtue of calculated political decisions,
or by just so-called “public participation.” There has
to be reliable origin and destination data by a period
of time among multiple transportation districts,
determining the split between highway and potential
transit trips. This chart is an example of such
necessary information.

42. Slide 36
TRANSPORTATION IS
TOO IMPORTANT TO BE
LEFT IN HANDS OF
POLITICIANS
I am increasingly uncomfortable listening to all of
the government officials, mayors, directors of ADOT,
senators, of even the Secretaries of Transportation
when they are talking about the transportation
infrastructure and the lack of the funding.
These people clearly demonstrate that they do not
understand that is not only the available funding and
the construction of transportation facilities that
matter.
It is because they have no recognition of the need
for the functional design of entire transportation

43. systems before the funding and construction is
applied to these projects.
The problem is that a US Secretary of Transportation
can be a person with the background in public
administration, or a high school teacher with
experience in vehicle registrations. Transportation
Planning Director can be a PhD in political science,
and the State Traffic Engineer educated in mining
engineering with self-proclaimed people skills, or
currently a former highway maintenance engineer.

44. Slide 37
Traffic Engineering
Transportation Planning
Transit Operations Design
 Making competent
decisions about highway &
potential transit trips
 Understanding individual
modes and their unique
operational characteristics
That is why the mastering of these subjects need an
entire person as the Traffic Engineering professional,
who is well rounded to other related aspects of the
transportation systems design, such as the transit
operations design, transportation planning capable
of making competent proposals in division of the
highway and potential transit trips, understanding
the capacities of individual transportation modes
and their unique operational characteristics.

45. Slide 38
Traffic Engineering is related to
operations safety on our highways
Properly performed traffic engineering design is
directly related to the traffic operations safety on
our highways. Therefore, the lack of traffic
engineering design often leads to accidents resulting
in injuries; loss of life, as well as to physical
damages.
There are too many issues that cannot be discussed
in any such presentation as I wish I could go through
during my limited time in here. That just suggests
that the traffic engineering discipline is a complex
profession that needs a lot more attention that it is
given so far.

47. Slide 39
ITE is not effective in
changing this serious
state of affairs
Finally, I feel for a great period of time
that the Institute of Transportation
Engineers is not doing its job in changing
this serious state of affairs.

48. Slide 40
Questions
Comments
Thanks for your
Attention
I will welcome your comments !!!