A web-based analysis of sustainable transportation curricula

Abstract

The purpose of this study is analyzed the public content on the websites of targeted universities to determine their commitment to educating the world about sustainable transportation. We created a list of academic organizations based on the compendium of papers from the Transportation Research Board’s 2012 annual meeting. Then we analyzed the content from the public websites of these organizations to distinguish differences in the way universities in North America and Europe designed courses related to sustainable transport. After analyzing information from about 5,000 such courses, we found that most of them were worth 3 credits, more courses were offered for graduate students than for undergraduates, lecturing was the most common teaching method, the most commonly offered course was Transportation Engineering, and, on average, North American universities offered more sustainable transport courses than their European counterparts. Finally, the environmental issue was emphasized and discussed far more than the economic and social issue. Our findings suggest diverse differences in sustainability-related curriculum design from transport schools of different backgrounds. This is first article try to provide a holistic picture of the current state of sustainable transport, based on an exploratory empirical study of the world’s major transport schools.