Urban Transport

The Masters in Urban Transport offers a comprehensive academic approach to a career in one of the most salient and pressing issues in contemporary urban areas; how to provide safe, inclusive, environmentally friendly and efficient transport systems. The degree is designed to ensure that you become familiar with multiple approaches to planning and managing urban transport systems. It will provide you with the theory and methods as well as practical knowledge to be employed in governmental organisations and private sector consultancies.

WHY THIS PROGRAMME
- The programme will help you understand the broad range of stakeholders in city planning and urban transport systems and the connections to other vital sectors in cities such as energy, environment, housing, land use, economic development, and labour markets.

- By the end of the programme you will have a comprehensive understanding of the policies and planning processes to reduce congestion, air pollution, road fatalities and lack of access.

- The focus will be on multiple modes of urban transport – roads, public transport, active transport, emerging shared and intermodal transport - and the use of information technology in transport, enabling you to design highly innovative urban transport solutions in both developed and emerging country contexts.

- The programme will provide you with the theory and methods, as well as practical knowledge to be employed in governmental organisations and private sector consultancies.

- You will gain skills increasingly required by transport professionals, and acquire specialist knowledge and methods to analyse cities and transport using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), statistical and visualisation approaches and other planning software and tools.

- These skills will allow you to develop city and transport plans and policies, conduct environmental and other impact evaluation, and to undertake a wide variety of geographical and market analysis.

- You will benefit from the programme’s strong connection with the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC), which was funded recently by UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, and with which all academic staff in the MSc are involved. The centre undertakes world-leading research on a variety of topics which are integral to cities, including transport, housing and employment.

- An optional field trip to London will provide you with an insight into the complex socio-economic dynamics of city building and design through visits to high profile real estate, planning and regeneration projects.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
You will take five core courses and two or three optional courses.

Key courses on transport will be followed by lab sessions where practical lessons on the use of highly specialised software will be given in the form of either independent or group projects. This approach will help you to not only acquire theoretical knowledge but also to apply their knowledge to real world problems with actual data. Optional courses will provide you with the opportunity to pursue personal interests, enhancing particular skills or domain-specific knowledge such as urban analytics or spatial planning.

A cross-disciplinary course approach will ensure you learn industry-specific skills in both transport planning and engineering and allows you to focus more heavily on either of the two strands of the programme.

You will be expected submit essays and lab reports as part of the their course assessment and a dissertation at the end of the programme.

Core courses
Principles and Applications of GIS
Transport Planning Methods
Transport Studies
Quantitative Data Analysis (Semester 1)
Transport Planning Lab

Optional courses
Big Data and Urban Analytics
Programming Tools for Urban Analytics
Spatial Planning Strategies
Sustainable Urban Futures (10)
Urban Analytics Group Project