Transportation Systems
MIT OpenCourseWare presents a graduate-level course treating transportation as a complex, large-scale, integrated, open system (CLIOS). Lectures and materials introduce qualitative modeling techniques and philosophies for analyzing transportation enterprises, including frameworks for regional strategic planning, institutional change analysis, and new technology deployment. The course examines how transportation systems interact with social, political, and economic forces, covering both traveler and freight systems. It works through the fundamental principles behind transportation planning, investment, operations, and maintenance decisions. Materials include lecture notes, readings, and assignments from MIT's Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems Division curriculum, freely published under a Creative Commons license with no certificate offered. The course suits students wanting a systems-level framework for understanding how large infrastructure networks actually function and change over time.