Traffic | Mobility

The design of inner-city street spaces is a topic that has been increasingly discussed in recent years. How can the available space in cities be distributed fairly among all road users? How, for example, can more and more bicycles and also new mobility offers be integrated into the existing infrastructure and what challenges have to be overcome here? How can our roads be made safer for all road users and what contribution can each user make? And how can the special and different requirements of mobility-impaired people be taken into account? Civil or Transportation Engineers try to find an answer to these questions in cooperation with other disciplines and to develop balanced, sustainable and economic solutions.

In the basic lecture "Transport and Urban Planning" and the advanced subjects of the IVS (Institute of Transport and Urban Engineering you also have the opportunity to deal with these questions and to contribute your experience. Using existing regulations and practical examples, you will learn the basics of road design and planning. You can then apply the knowledge you have gained to examples and real street spaces in Braunschweig and other municipalities in the region. When your studies are coming to an end, we offer a variety of Bachelor's and Master's theses in cooperation with municipalities and engineering offices, in which you can use the knowledge you have gained and your own skills to work out a proposal for redesigning a road or a junction. The IVS is well networked here and works well with the various administrations.

The road network in Germany is very well developed. However, since total traffic will increase rather than decrease in the coming decades, the question of how to optimally utilise the existing infrastructure and which technical systems for traffic control can be used for this purpose is increasingly coming into focus. In addition to the proven influencing and informing systems at roads (influencing the collective), systems for individual influencing have become increasingly important in recent years.

In the courses at the Institute of Transport and Urban Engineering, you will learn the basics of Road Traffic Technology and Traffic Management. You will learn how traffic light systems at intersections work and how they can react dynamically to traffic. But traffic control on motorways in the form of dynamic displays or announcements on the traffic radio are also important topics. You also get the opportunity to look into the future with us. Here we deal with automated and connected driving and ask ourselves whether and how the existing traffic infrastructure seems suitable for this or whether adjustments are necessary here.

In order to control traffic control measures, large amounts of data are constantly being collected in practice. This includes classic methods, such as recording vehicles with induction loops or radar systems, which are also used in "speed cameras". However, with the advent of smartphones and navigation apps, new sources of data are being added that can be used specifically for traffic recording.  Have you ever wondered, for example, what data the navigation app on your mobile phone uses to detect traffic jams in advance and suggest the best possible alternative route? And how reliable is it? You can deal with these and other questions in your studies.

Almost every seventh newly registered car now has a battery drive. The share of e-cars is thus steadily increasing. But how can the time-consuming charging at charging stations, which "deters" many people from buying an electric car, and the high battery costs be circumvented? With wireless charging while driving, i.e. without overhead lines that spoil the landscape and pollute the environment. The Institute for Roads is currently researching this in cooperation with Volkswagen and other project partners from industry.

The system is based on inductive energy transmission, as is known, for example, from induction hotplates in the kitchen or from inductive charging of smartphones. Induction coils are integrated into the asphalt roads at a depth of about 10 centimetres and covered with an asphalt surface layer so that the system is not visible to the user. The driver's electric car contains the receiver that transmits the energy to the system's battery.

If this system is effective, so-called e-corridors of 25 kilometres in length can be built at regular intervals on motorways, for example, so that the car's battery is automatically charged while driving and charging at a charging station may no longer be necessary.

Has this topic aroused your interest? Then you can read a report here in which Prof. Michael Wistuba tells the TU Braunschweig magazine about the project in more detail:

Keine Kabel, kein Warten

Increasing urbanisation and climate change require a rapid change in transport. In terms of sustainable mobility development, an expansion of public transport services is crucial. This should enable the reduction of environmental pollution, the redistribution of road space and the better connection of development sites.

If the tram network is to be expanded accordingly, numerous existing bridges are affected that are not designed for the tram tracks with a special railway body. In the course of a research project, the Institute of Transport, Railway Construction and Operation (IVE) is investigating whether a tram track on bridges with a construction height of about 10 cm is feasible and can be economically maintained. For this purpose, a special construction has to be developed and mathematically proven, taking into account the track/bridge interaction. The special rail profiles and the preferred variant are being tested in the laboratory in cooperation with the Institute for Steel Construction (see Figure 1).

You will get these and other exciting insights into project work at the Institute of Transport, Railway Construction and Operation in all our lectures. In the Bachelor's programme, we look at the basics of track-based transport and public transport for all the important basics. In the Master's programme, you can choose between specialisations such as rail-based transport or transport planning and public transport and select your own core subjects.