Traffic signal operations education through hands-on experience: lessons learned from a workshop prototype.

The development, implementation, and assessment of the traffic signal summer workshop (TSSW) are explored. An innovative educational prototype that has been conducted at the University of Idaho during the past two summers, TSSW addresses several critical issues, including the need to educate and train university engineering students in different ways, and the lack of adequately trained engineers and technicians prepared to design and manage today's traffic signal infrastructure. Those issues are discussed along with the pedagogical basis for hands-on experiences in engineering education. Also discussed is how the university has responded, with the TSSW prototype, to the need to deliver transportation engineering education in a new way.