About the Program
About the Program
Cities and communities around the world face many complex challenges to secure their future energy, mobility, health, and environmental needs in a sustainable manner. Smart advanced technologies and engineering solutions will play a pivotal role in providing key answers to these challenges. This interdisciplinary program offers advanced knowledge and skills to develop and deploy such technologies and solutions that enable urban planning professionals and leaders to effectively design, build, and manage the sustainable and smart cities of the future.
This program provides a wide range of subjects covering fundamentals of smart sustainable cities. It covers the fundamentals (land use, energy systems, mobility modes, infrastructure systems, etc.), sustainable urban development (transportation, water, energy social infrastructure, etc.), sustainable neighborhoods (sensitive site design, ecology conservation, biodiversity, mixed use development, walkability, etc.), and intelligent transportation systems (e.g. connected vehicles, travel demand management).
The program also equips the student with the necessary tools to become effective in this field, such as urban sustainability planning methods (decision theory, data classification, statistical sampling, hypothesis testing, etc.), environmental economics (market failure, externality, common and public goods, economic environmental valuation, circular economy, etc.), urban informatics (remote sensing, spatial data structures, global GIS databases, photogrammetric systems, space borne sensors, etc.), and big data analytics (e.g. smart clouds, machine learning and visualization of big data, privacy).
Background Needed for Admission
To apply to the program, candidates must have a Bachelor degree in City (or Urban) Planning, Architecture, Architectural Engineering, or Civil Engineering. Holders of other degrees such as Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Economics, Management Information Systems, Geography, and other related fields may be admitted depending on their experiences, statement of purpose and backgrounds.
The minimum requirements for possible admission are as below:
- A Bachelor (B.Sc.) from a recognized institution with a high academic reputation.
- A Grade-Point Average (GPA) of 2.5 or higher on a scale of 4.00 or equivalent.
- Official transcripts and degree certificates are required for final admission.
- Completion of TOEFL with a minimum score of 70 (IBT). IELTS is also acceptable (minimum band-6.0). IELTS or TOEFL is not required for KFUPM students.
- At least two letters of recommendation.
Degree Plan
Course Descriptions
CRP580 Fundamentals of Smart and Sustainable Cities 3-0-3
Basics of the smart and sustainable challenges facing urban areas and the different factors and processes that develop and shape smart and sustainable cities. Explore the role of land use, energy systems, mobility modes, and different infrastructures systems in lowering city’s environmental footprint. Knowledge of how innovations in technology, planning, and sustainability assessment tools can create smart, healthy, resilient and inclusive cities and improve quality of life.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CRP581 Environmental Economics and Sustainability 3-0-3
Theoretical and empirical studies of the economic effects of environmental policies. Issues of costs and benefits of alternative sustainability environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, solid waste, and other climate change impacts. Market failure; externality, common and public goods; economic valuation of the environment; and circular economy in cities.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CRP582 Quantitative Methods 3-0-3
Context and role of data and analysis in city and regional planning. Design of surveys including questionnaire planning and construction, data collection and data processing. Probability, statistics, and decision theory and their applications in city planning. Basic probability concepts, data classification and summarization, statistical sampling, hypothesis testing, goodness of fit, regression analysis, analysis of variance, contingency tables, and elementary Bayesian decision making. Computer statistical packages.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CRP583 Urban Informatics 3-0-3
GIS functional elements and basics of Remote Sensing, attribute and spatial data structures, global GIS databases, and GIS and Remote Sensing application areas. Photogrammetric systems, space borne sensors and platforms, fundamentals of analyzing remotely sensed data and data integration. Case studies of GIS and Remote Sensing adoption and application in Saudi Arabia and abroad. GIS planning and implementation, and future of GIS and Remote Sensing technology.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CRP584 Sustainable Infrastructure and Renewable Energy 3-0-3
Fundamentals of sustainable urban and infrastructure development with insight into renewable energy infrastructure. Aspects related to urban and infrastructure development, urban and alternative energy sources (production, distribution, and consumption), including urban and transportation (land, rail, air, and water), urban and water, and urban and social infrastructure. Concepts and approaches towards sustainable urban and infrastructure development and the perspective of renewable energy – integration. Emphasis on operations of technical urban infrastructure
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
ARC514 Sustainable Neighborhood and Urbanism 3-0-3
Sustainability development attributes at the level of neighborhoods and urban areas. Various innovative approaches and strategies to develop sustainable urban areas and foster smart growth strategies. This includes sensitive site design, conserve ecology and biodiversity, green land conservation, land use, pollution of surface and ground water bodies, access to quality transit, mixed use development, walkability, compact development, access to public spaces and recreation facilities, urban heat island among others. Assessment/rating systems for sustainable neighborhood and urban sustainability and their respective indicators. Livability, smart city, affordable housing, urban revitalization, and new urbanism.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CE584 Intelligent Transportation Systems 3-0-3
Fundamentals of ITS, Importance of telecommunications in the ITS, Information Management, Traffic Management Centers (TMC), Application of sensors to Traffic management, ITS User Needs and Services, Advanced Traffic Management systems (ATMS), Advanced Traveler Information systems (ATIS), Advanced Rural Transportation systems (ARTS), ITS Models and Evaluation Methods, Connected vehicles, ITS and safety, Travel demand management, Traffic and incident management systems.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
ICS574 Big Data Analytics 3-0-3
Introduction and foundation of big data and big-data analytics. Sources of big data. Smart clouds. Hadoop file system and Apache Spark. Storage management for big data. Machine learning and visualization with big data. Applications of big data. Big data security, privacy, and its societal impacts.
Pre-requisite: Graduate Standing
CRP 619 Project 0-0-6
Master report on an independent study that deals with the analysis and/or design of a significant problem related to the field of smart and sustainable cities and prepared under the supervision of a CRP faculty. This report should follow formal report format including an introduction, literature review, research methodology, collection and analysis of data, conclusions and recommendations, list of references and appendices. The report will be presented and evaluated by a faculty committee.