Transportation Breadth Portion

[CivilEngMatt]

I am taking the WR Depth portion of the exam in October. I began studing in June, and have worked through the Geotechnical, and WR portions of the CERM. I plan to begin the Transportation section next. I don't want to spend to much time studying topics not covered on the exam. The NCEES, list the transportation topics below, that will be on the breadth portion of the exam.

Transportation 20%

A. Geometric Design

1. Horizontal curves

2. Vertical curves

3. Sight distance

4. Superelevation

5. Vertical and/or horizontal clearances

6. Acceleration and deceleration

The CERM covers much more than the list above. I just wanted to confirm with those that have taken the exam (pass or fail), that the topics listed above reflect the questions on the breadth portion of the exam. It seems light compared to the depth topics. Any advice for the breadth portion of the exam would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

 

[IL-SE]

That list covers it. There was definitely horizonal and vertical curves and stopping sight distance. There was no Level of Service or signal timing or anything like that.

Spend your time learning where the equations are in the book and what the variables are in the equations. Do a few of the basic problems for each type. Pay particular attention to units, some transportation equations already have the conversion factors in them, for example stopping sight distance.

From what I remember, most of the problems in the morning transportation were plug & chug. Figure out what variables are given and what you are solving for, and then find the right equation.

 

[sac_engineer]

I agree with IL-SE. There's a lot of plug and chug type of questions in the transportation breadth of the exam.

I think vertical curves are problematic for most non-transpo examinees, but once you know how the parameters of a vertical curve (i.e. length, g1, g2) can be quickly converted to an equation, it becomes very easy to determine elevations along the curve at a given station. The same goes with horizontal curves since their just circles.

It would save a lot of time to have tables of safe stopping distances for a range of speeds rather than computing them during the exam.

Good luck!