Various embodiments providing for an indicator (termed the “Traffic Category Indicator,” TCI) to be encoded into packets, different values of which can be used, e.g., to distinguish Traffic Engineered (TE) packets and non-TE packets. In an example embodiment, the TCI can be used, e.g., to configure a network node to implement different packet queues, on each link, for TE packets and non-TE packets. In embodiments corresponding to the DiffSery TE paradigm, a node can be configured to implement different queues within each Forwarding Class for each link, said different queues distinguished by different respective TCI values. Example benefits of TCI include, but are not limited to fate separation of TE and non-TE packets in a node. The TCI concept can beneficially be applied to different packet-switching technologies supporting Source Routing, such as the IP, MPLS, Ethernet, etc.