Scott S. Washburn, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, a professor at the University of Florida and a prominent transportation engineer, has been named a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Washburn, in 25+ years as a professor, has taught nearly 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students, across 10 different courses. He has graduated 72 M.S. and Ph.D. students, been a committee member of another 66 graduate students, and supervised 33 undergraduate research assistants.
Since 2001, Washburn has been a co-author of the textbook Principles of Highway Engineering and Traffic Analysis, publishing five editions (and two international versions) of the book to date. This textbook has been the bestselling book in its market for the past 20 years, selling over 45,000 copies since 2004, and is used at over 140 universities in the U.S. and numerous international universities as well. The success of this text can largely be attributed to its unique combination of focused depth and several pedagogical features. As a result of the book's very large adoption, it has been one of the foundations for educating many thousands of university students on the topic of transportation engineering.
Washburn has advanced the traffic analysis capabilities of the civil engineering profession through his efforts with the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), one of the foremost references on traffic analysis in the U.S. Washburn has been a major contributor to the development of the HCM’s last three editions. Most notably, the latest edition (7th) includes a new analysis methodology for two-lane highways (Chapter 15), for which Washburn served as the lead researcher.
Furthermore, Washburn has advanced the state of the art in microscopic traffic simulation modeling, particularly with respect to two-lane highway operations models and detailed vehicle powertrain modeling. The latter modeling capability has led to advances in the accuracy of vehicle acceleration and emissions and energy use estimation from microsimulation.
