Transportation engineering topics often focus on cost and funding issues in the process of developing and completing a project. Topics can include how to deal with cost overruns, create a budget and get the most for the money allocated. Projects can also include how fuel taxes influence the amount of money spent on transportation projects, the political decisions made by both parties regarding funding jeopardizing projects and economic factors that put transportation projects in danger. Topics can also focus on comparing and contrasting different states and their budgets as they relate to projects.
Topics in transportation engineering in an urban setting can focus on congestion, commuting and environmental issues. In projects about congestion, topics can include how demand increases over a certain period of time, how the current needs of the population must meet future growth and mobility and how things such as parking spaces must be taken into consideration. Analyzing projects throughout history such as the New York City subway system and the growth of American car buying can also show how transportation engineering projects affected the daily life of average Americans by giving them mobility and access to parts of the country never before seen by many.
Engineering a mass transit project takes time and planning and topics can include knowing the needs of the community, serving multiple customers and making sure projects do not neglect potential growth areas. Topics can also focus on how foreign countries rely on mass transit more heavily than the United States and how certain parts of the world rely on it almost exclusively as a form of transportation and how engineers must take those factors into consideration when building a project. Engineers can apply these topics to highway construction, air transportation, subway systems and railroads.
Transportation engineers must take into account a number of environmental concerns, including species, land acquisition and areas such as dealing with wetlands, rivers, streams, parks and green space. Projects can also focus on creative ways to get around environmental issues and using "green technology" to make projects environmentally friendly. Topics can also take environmental factors into consideration when building highways, roadways and other paved areas over parks, rivers, and other green space, as well as noise pollution and quality of life issues.