The construction and development of the transportation engineering discipline at Chang'an University originated from the teaching of traffic engineering knowledge by a Chinese American Mr. Qiu Zhang, and grew up with the advantages of the university in the field of highway transportation infrastructure planning and design.

 With the efforts of Entang Zhao, Jianmin Yan, Shusheng Zhang, Yuhua Zhang , Baojie Yan and other transportation discipline leaders and educators, the transportation engineering major has become a domestic first-class construction major in China.

In 1980, Professor Baojie Yan of Chang'an University participated in organizing  and publishing the lecture materials of Mr. Qiu Zhang, which was the first book on traffic engineering in China.

In 1982, a master's degree in transportation engineering was recruited under the master's program of highway, urban road and airport engineering.

In view of the shortage of transportation engineering professional, in 1983, Chang'an University has set up two “urban transportation management professional training” courses for the Ministry of Public Security, which combined the theory of transportation engineering with the practice of China's transportation development. This has made a positive contribution to China's transportation management and promoted the modernization of China's urban transportation management.

In 1985, the undergraduate major of transportation engineering was officially enrolled and Chang’an University became one of the first university to establish the major of transportation engineering. Since the establishment of the transportation engineering major, it has won many Teaching Achievement Awards. In 2006, the transportation engineering discipline of Chang'an University won the title of Famous Brand Professional in Shaanxi Province, and was approved as a National Featured Professional in 2009. In 2008, the direction of urban rail transit, airport and road overall engineering was added, and the transportation engineering bilingual program was established in 2014. In 2017, transportation engineering discipline passed the China Engineering Education Certification. In 2019, the transportation engineering discipline entered the ranks of the national first-class discipline construction.

The transportation engineering discipline in Chang'an University has a professional teaching team of Shaanxi Province. The course of Transportation Planning is a national bilingual demonstration MOOC course, and there are also five courses of national and provincial quality resource sharing courses. More than 20 national planning textbooks have been published.

This major has a number of students training demonstration bases and teaching demonstration centers to cultivate students with with diverse abilities. Students have won many awards in the National University Student Transportation Science and Technology Competition, the University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program, etc.

In 1990, the transportation engineering discipline in Chang'an University obtained the right to grant master's degree. In 1998, a post-doctoral research station was established .

In 2010, the transportation planning and management discipline was approved as a national key discipline. In 2018, the Wushouer Silamu Traffic Engineering Academician Workstation was established. In 2019, the base of Sustainable Development of Transportation in China Western City Cluster and the key laboratory of “Transport Industry of Management, Control and Cycle Repair Technology for Traffic Network Facilities in Ecological Security Barrier Area (Chang’an University)” was approved.

Focusing on this discipline, a large number of researches and projects have been carried out in terms of mining technology, traffic flow theory, traffic signal control theory, and traffic prediction.The transportation engineering discipline in Chang'an University has become a professional talent training base in the field of transportation industry in China, and is also a well-known research institution in the field of comprehensive transportation management. It occupies a leading position in the transportation discipline in China, and has a certain influence in the international academic field.