This lesson focuses on the importance of airplanes in today's society. Airplanes of all shapes and sizes are used for hundreds of different reasons, including recreation, commercial business, public transportation, and delivery of goods, among many others. From transporting people to crop-dusting, our society and our economy have come to depend on airplanes. Students will discuss their own experiences with airplanes and learn more about the role of airplanes in our world.

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how aircrafts have decreased the amount of time it takes to transport people and cargo. Students will compute the time it takes to travel between two cities for several modes of transportation including trucks, trains and airplanes. Students will also do some critical thinking to determine why airplanes are not always used.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

The class will cover quantitative techniques of Operations Research with emphasis on applications in transportation systems analysis (urban, air, ocean, highway, pick-up and delivery systems) and in the planning and design of logistically oriented urban service systems (e.g., fire and police departments, emergency medical services, emergency repair services). It presents a unified study of functions of random variables, geometrical probability, multi-server queueing theory, spatial location theory, network analysis and graph theory, and relevant methods of simulation. There will be discussion focused on the difficulty of implementation, among other topics.

Quantitative techniques of operations research with emphasis on applications in transportation systems analysis (urban, air, ocean, highway, and pickup and delivery systems) and in the planning and design of logistically oriented urban service systems (e.g., fire and police departments, emergency medical services, and emergency repair services). Unified study of functions of random variables, geometrical probability, multi-server queuing theory, spatial location theory, network analysis and graph theory, and relevant methods of simulation. Computer exercises and discussions of implementation difficulties.

This class is a global survey of the great transformation in history known as the “Industrial Revolution.” Topics include origins of mechanized production, the factory system, steam propulsion, electrification, mass communications, mass production and automation. Emphasis on the transfer of technology and its many adaptations around the world. Countries treated include Great Britain, France, Germany, the US, Sweden, Russia, Japan, China, and India. Includes brief reflection papers and a final paper.

15.768 Management of Services: Concepts, Design, and Delivery explores the use of operations tools and perspectives in the service sector, including both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. The course builds on conceptual frameworks and cases from a wide range of service operations, selected from health care, hospitality, internet services, supply chain, transportation, retailing, food service, entertainment, financial services, humanitarian services, government services, and others.

This course covers organizational, strategic and operational aspects of managing Supply Networks (SNs) from domestic and international perspectives. Topics include alternative SN structures, strategic alliances, design of delivery systems and the role of third party logistics providers. Many of the activities exchanged among enterprises in a SN are of a service nature, and the final output is often a combination of tangible products and services which the end-customer purchases. A series of concepts, frameworks and analytic tools are provided to better understand the management of service operations. Guest speakers share their experiences in managing SNs and services. Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership.

Our objective in this course is to introduce you to concepts and techniques related to the design, planning, control, and improvement of manufacturing and service operations. The course begins with a holistic view of operations, where we stress the coordination of product development, process management, and supply chain management. As the course progresses, we will investigate various aspects of each of these three tiers of operations in detail. We will cover topics in the areas of process analysis, materials management, production scheduling, quality improvement, and product design.
To pursue the course objective most effectively, you will have to:

Study the assigned reading materials.
Prepare and discuss cases, readings, and exercises in class.
Prepare written analyses of cases.

This course will address operations strategy by building on the concepts of:

Reengineering and process design developed by Dr. Michael Hammer.
Manufacturing strategy as developed in the literature, primarily by people at HBS.
Supply chain design and 3-D concurrent engineering literature as developed in Charles Fine’s book, Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage. Perseus Books, 1999.

The concepts there emphasize the necessity of integrating product strategy, manufacturing strategy, and supply chain strategy. As a result, each of these will be touched upon in the course.

This course introduces students to the theory, algorithms, and applications of optimization. The optimization methodologies include linear programming, network optimization, integer programming, and decision trees. Applications to logistics, manufacturing, transportation, marketing, project management, and finance. Includes a team project in which students select and solve a problem in practice.

This course explores policy and planning for sustainable development. It critically examines concept of sustainability as a process of social, organizational, and political development drawing on cases from the U.S. and Europe. It also explores pathways to sustainability through debates on ecological modernization; sustainable technology development, international and intergenerational fairness, and democratic governance.

Poster circulated in Philadelphia in 1839 to discourage the coming of the railroad, 1839

Examine a collection of primary source documents about airplanes in the United States.

Examine a collection of primary source documents about railroads in the United States.

Examine a collection of primary source documents about trolleys and streetcars in American history.

“I love to travel. But I hate the fact that something I love to do, creates so much pollution.” In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), MIT professor Steven Barrett and host Laur Hesse Fisher dig into how — and why — air travel impacts our earth’s climate, and what solutions are on the horizon. They explore the surprising heating effect of condensation trails (“contrails”), how computer simulations of the earth’s climate system are built, and what scientists and engineers are doing to make flying, well, less bad for the planet.

This lesson features a comparison of different travel options from New York City to six other cities. Students compare walking, biking, driving, taking the bus, riding the train, and flying. Students conduct research and calculate the CO2e for each travel option.

Step 1 - Inquire: Students watch a short video on the climate crisis. In groups, students explore and discuss emissions from the transportation sector.

Step 2 - Investigate: Students are assigned one route between New York City and another city in the Northeast. Students calculate miles, cost, time, and CO2e for each travel option for their route.

Step 3 - Inspire: Students participate in a group discussion about the results and explore different ways to decarbonize our transportation system.

Do you know how important GIS is to the transportation industry? The spatial applications to this field are so extensive that they represent an entire sub-discipline within the GIS community. In this course, we'll learn about the primary modes of transportation and explore some of the spatial applications developed to meet the unique needs of each. We'll also take a close look at some key organizations in the industry and learn firsthand from more than a dozen transportation professionals about the role GIS plays for them. Throughout the course, we'll study GIS concepts and techniques that are fundamental to transportation and get hands-on experience with tools such as Esri's Network Analyst and Esri's Roads and Highways.