Browse PDH courses
Digital Design Deliverables as Contract Documents
When a highway project delivers both a 3D model and plan sheets, the contract has to say whether the model or the sheets govern. Most state agencies have not answered that question, and the course examines the two that have: New York, which amends its contract language so desi...
Soil Corrosivity and Metal Loss in Earth Retaining and Foundation Systems
MSE wall reinforcement and driven piles are usually protected from corrosion by extra steel alone, sized to corrode away over the service life. How much extra steel to provide is the subject here. Built on the National Academies' 2023 study Corrosion of Buried Steel at New and...
UAS for Element-Level Bridge Inspection Under the NBIS
Drones cut the cost and risk of bridge inspection access, but the 2022 National Bridge Inspection Standards decide which drone photographs can support a rating. The course maps where that line falls: FHWA's position on advanced inspection technology, why NSTM inspections stay ...
Depicting Subsurface Utilities in Highway Design Plans
Every highway plan set shows buried utilities, but few say how reliable any given line is. The gap between a drawn line and the pipe in the ground surfaces at bid time or in the trench. ASCE 38-22 addresses that gap with four utility quality levels, and the course explains wha...
Recycled Plastics in Asphalt Pavements: Current Evidence and Practice
Recycled plastic is being pitched as an asphalt additive, and the marketing has moved faster than the research. The course sorts out what the completed studies actually found, drawing on the national laboratory study of dry-process addition (NCHRP Research Report 1143), the TR...
Designing Highway Stormwater BMPs for TMDL and NPDES Compliance
Highway stormwater is regulated differently from site stormwater. A corridor has many outfalls, limited right of way, and a permit obligation that increasingly arrives as a TMDL wasteload allocation. This five-hour course covers how to design treatment practices that can actua...
Recycled Binder Availability: Testing, Design, and Specification
Some of the binder in reclaimed asphalt pavement stays trapped inside its particles and never blends into the new mixture. Standard volumetric design assumes all of it does. Measured availability runs anywhere from about 40 to 100 percent, while agencies that apply any discoun...
Accessible Transit Stop Design Under PROWAG
Transit stops in the public right-of-way now fall under an enforceable federal accessibility standard. DOT adopted PROWAG on January 17, 2025, and it applies with no phase-in to any new construction or alteration after that date. Much of the work the rule now covers is small: ...
Urban Drainage Design: Pavement, Gutters, and Roadside Channels
This course covers the hydraulic design of roadway pavement drainage and roadside conveyance systems, drawing from Chapters 5 and 6 of FHWA's Urban Stormwater Management in the United States: Hydraulic Engineering Circular No. 22 (HEC-22), 4th Edition. The course addresses des...
Implementing and Operating UAS Programs for Transportation Agencies
This course covers the development and operation of uncrewed aircraft systems programs at transportation agencies. Topics include the FAA regulatory framework, UAS platform and sensor selection, mission planning, field data collection parameters, documented use cases and cost ...
AI for Automated Asphalt Pavement Distress Assessment from Vehicle-Mounted Imaging
This course examines artificial intelligence applications for automated asphalt pavement distress assessment. Topics include the federal regulatory context and distress taxonomy, data acquisition modalities including 2D and 3D imaging systems, computer vision architectures for...
AI for Transportation: Implementing Machine Learning from Pilot to Enterprise Scale
This course translates the ten-step roadmap for building machine learning capability at state departments of transportation. Topics include ML fundamentals, use case qualification, organizational readiness assessment, business case development, pilot planning and execution, ri...
Texas PE Ethics 2026: Real Cases, Current Rules
This course examines the 2026 Texas PE ethics landscape through the lens of the January 7, 2026 TBPELS rules update and five real disciplinary cases from the Board's public record. Topics covered include the biennial renewal cycle, updated inactive status and advisory opinion ...
Guidance for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping: Coastal Structures
This course adapts FEMA's Guidance for Flood Risk Analysis and Mapping: Coastal Structures (Guidance Document No. 42, November 2024) for engineers serving as the engineer of record on certified coastal flood protection structures or as a Mapping Partner under the National Floo...
Design Recommendations for Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
This course introduces engineers to design recommendations for accessible electric vehicle charging stations, drawing from the U.S. Access Board's Design Recommendations for Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging Stations technical assistance document. The course covers the regu...
Impacts of Automated Vehicles on Highway Infrastructure
This course draws on NCHRP research examining the potential impacts of automated vehicles on highway infrastructure across four categories — physical infrastructure, traffic control devices, TSMO and ITS systems, and urban multimodal infrastructure — from the perspective of in...
Living Shorelines: Monitoring, Adaptive Management, and Emerging Practice
This course covers the monitoring, inspection, and adaptive management of living shorelines projects, drawing on engineering guidance developed for coastal practitioners in alignment with ASCE MoP 130 and New Jersey regulatory frameworks. The course addresses the three-part tr...
Living Shorelines: Nature-Based Techniques — Reefs, Coir, and Beach Nourishment
This course covers three nature-based living shoreline techniques — living reef breakwaters, coir mats and logs, and beach and shoreface nourishment — examining the design parameters, constructability considerations, and adaptive management requirements for each approach. Draw...
Living Shorelines: Marsh Sill and Breakwater Design and Application
This course introduces the engineering principles and design methodology of living shorelines, drawing on guidance developed for coastal practitioners in alignment with USACE natural and nature-based features frameworks and New Jersey Coastal General Permit 24. The course cove...
Living Shorelines: Site Assessment and Engineering Design Fundamentals
This course draws on engineering guidance developed for practicing coastal engineers to introduce the principles and design methodology of living shorelines as an alternative to traditional hard shoreline stabilization. The course covers site assessment, the four categories of...
Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) in Modern Highway Construction
This course draws on the NCHRP Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) in Modern Highway Construction synthesis to examine how state DOTs specify and use SCMs in concrete pavements and structures. The course covers conventional SCMs (fly ash, slag cement, silica fume), nat...
Automated Machine Guidance in Heavy Civil Construction
This course covers the principles and applications of automated machine guidance (AMG) in heavy civil construction, drawing from FHWA's Automated Machine Guidance in Heavy Civil Construction (FHWA-HRT-16-031). Topics include 3D engineered model development, GNSS and total stat...
Structural Health Monitoring of Bridge Substructures
This course introduces structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques for bridge substructures, drawing from FHWA's research report Structural Health Monitoring of Bridge Substructures (FHWA-HRT-09-040). Topics include remote monitoring system components, sensor types for tempe...
Fundamentals of 3D Concrete Printed (3DCP) Construction Systems
This course introduces the fundamentals of three-dimensional concrete printing (3DCP) construction systems, drawing from HUD's research report Fundamentals of 3D Concrete Printed (3DCP) Construction Systems. Topics include 3DCP technology types, major manufacturers, structural...
Intro to Digital As-Builts in transportation design
This course introduces transportation agency professionals to Digital As-Builts (DABs) — data-rich, 3D geospatial models that replace traditional 2D paper and PDF as-built drawings. Drawing from FHWA's Getting Started with Digital As-Builts guide (FHWA-HIF-24-098), the course ...