My friend Bob listened to a conversation between me and another traffic engineer (Bryant Ficek). He likened the part of our conversation where we were talking about a specific engineering project to the scene in the Godfather where Michael Corleone says "excuse me while we discuss this in Italian" (I am sure I botched Bob's rendition of the movie's quote). That dovetails nicely with the Roadguy's Blog post at the Star Tribune (Baby, don't forget my number: A county-road conundrum) that laments some of our industry's confusing jargon.
In the spirit of trying to demistify what we do, here is the best I could do in coming up with traffic engineering jargon from A to Z (any candidates for j, k, x, y, or z out there?):
AADT = Annual Average Daily Traffic
BPR = Bureau of Public Roads (precursor to FHWA)
CSAH = County
State Aid Highway
DBE = Disadvantaged Business Enterprise
EAW = Environmental Assessment Worksheet
FHWA = Federal Highway Administration
GIS = Geographic Information Systems
HCM = Highway Capacity
Manual (by Transportation Research Board)
ITE = Institute of Transportation Engineers
J
K
LOS = Level of Service (as defined in HCM)
MUTCD = Manual of
Uniform Traffic Control Devices
NCHRP = National
Cooperative Highway Research Program
OSHA = Occupational Safety
and Health Administration
PE = Professional Engineer (licensed by state)
Queue = Length of line of cars waiting at an intersection
RGU = Responsible Government Unit
SJR = Signal Justification Report
TH = Trunk Highway
US/DOT = United States Department of Transportation
VMT = Vehicle Miles Traveled
WIM = Weigh-in Motion
X
Y
Z
Sounds familiar…
http://www.ajfroggie.com/roads/minnesota/definitions.htm
A page I’ve had on my website for some time, updated periodically as I add new material, sometimes with acronyms which require explanation…