Transportation Engineering was founded in the early 80's in the 20th Century in Chang’an University, which is one of the first university that established this program. The department of Transportation Engineering was established in 1982, and started to enroll undergraduate students in 1985. The ratio between the number of postgraduate students and undergraduate students has reached 2 in 2002, which is considered as an indicator for top disciplines in first-class universities. Transportation engineering was designated as the Shaanxi province and National Characteristic Specialty in 2006 and 2009. In 2019, state-level first-class undergraduate program was awarded. This program consists of three sub-programs which are Traffic Engineering, Urban Rail Transit Engineering, and Airport Engineering.

    In order to meet the requirements and challenges proposed in the new national strategy, Transportation Engineering (Bilingual Program) was founded. On one hand, this program takes active actions to respond to the huge demand for the inter-disciplinary graduates from the international market of transportation infrastructure construction. On the other hand, the students are encouraged to study abroad for their postgraduate studies and to gain critical achievements in transportation researches.