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Transportation planning

1948 San Francisco roadway plan which inspired the Freeway Revolt Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments , and spatial planning d...

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1948 San Francisco roadway plan which inspired the Freeway Revolt

Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments, and spatial planning designs to prepare for future needs to move people and goods to destinations. As practiced today, it is a collaborative process that incorporates the input of many stakeholders including various government agencies, the public and private businesses. Transportation planners apply a multi-modal and/or comprehensive approach to analyzing the wide range of alternatives and impacts on the transportation system to influence beneficial outcomes.

Transportation planning is also commonly referred to as transport planning internationally, and is involved with the evaluation, assessment, design, and siting of transport facilities (generally streets, highways, bike lanes, and public transport lines).

Models and sustainability

Chicago Transit Authority Chicago 'L' trains use elevated tracks for a portion of the system, known as the Loop, which is in the Chicago Loop community area. It is an example of the siting of transportation facilities that results from transportation planning.
A bypass the Old Town in Szczecin, Poland

Transportation planning, or transport planning, has historically followed the rational planning model of defining goals and objectives, identifying problems, generating alternatives, evaluating alternatives, and developing plans. Other models for planning include rational actor, transit oriented development, satisficing, incremental planning, organizational process, collaborative planning, and political bargaining.

Planners are increasingly expected to adopt a multidisciplinary approach, especially due to the rising importance of environmentalism. For example, the use of behavioural psychology to persuade drivers to abandon their automobiles and use public transport instead. The role of the transport planner is shifting from technical analysis to promoting sustainability through integrated transport policies.[1] For example, in Hanoi, the increasing number of motorcycles is responsible for not only environmental damage but also slowing down economic growth. In the long run, the plan is to reduce traffic through a change in urban planning. Through economic incentives and attractive alternatives experts hope to lighten traffic in the short run.[2]

While quantitative methods of observing transport patterns are considered foundation in transport planning, the role of qualitative and mixed-methods analysis and the use of critical analytical frameworks[3] has increasingly been recognized as a key aspect of transport planning practice which integrates multiple planning criteria in generating, evaluating, and selection policy and project options.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, transport planning has traditionally been a branch of civil engineering. In the 1950s and the 1960s, it was generally believed that the motor car was an important element in the future of transport as economic growth spurred on car ownership figures. The role of the transport planner was to match motorway and rural road capacity against the demands of economic growth. Urban areas would need to be redesigned for the motor vehicle or impose traffic containment and demand management to mitigate congestion and environmental impacts. The policies were popularised in a 1963 government publication, Traffic in Towns. The contemporary Smeed Report on congestion pricing was initially promoted to manage demand but was deemed politically unacceptable. In more recent times, the approach has been caricatured as "predict and provide" to predict future transport demand and provide the network for it, usually by building more roads.

The publication of Planning Policy Guidance 13 in 1994 (revised in 2001),[4] followed by A New Deal for Transport[5] in 1998 and the white paper Transport Ten Year Plan 2000[6] again indicated an acceptance that unrestrained growth in road traffic was neither desirable nor feasible. The worries were threefold: concerns about congestion, concerns about the effect of road traffic on the environment (both natural and built) and concerns that an emphasis on road transport discriminates against vulnerable groups in society such as the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

These documents reiterated the emphasis on integration:

  • integration within and between different modes of transport
  • integration with the environment
  • integration with land use planning
  • integration with policies for education, health and wealth creation.

This attempt to reverse decades of underinvestment in the transport system has resulted in a severe shortage of transport planners. It was estimated in 2003 that 2,000 new planners would be required by 2010 to avoid jeopardizing the success of the Transport Ten Year Plan.

In 2006, the Transport Planning Society defined the key purpose of transport planning as:

to plan, design, deliver, manage and review transport, balancing the needs of society, the economy and the environment.[7]

The following key roles must be performed by transport planners:

  • take account of the social, economic and environmental context of their work
  • understand the legal, regulatory policy and resource framework within which they work
  • understand and create transport policies, strategies and plans that contribute to meeting social, economic and environmental needs
  • design the necessary transport projects, systems and services
  • understand the commercial aspects of operating transport systems and services
  • know about and apply the relevant tools and techniques
  • must be competent in all aspects of management, in particular communications, personal skills and project management.[7]

The UK Treasury recognises and has published guidance on the systematic tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic in their initial estimates.[8]

United States

Un mapa azul grisáceo de una carretera, cubierto de líneas variadas.
A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) map of the planned route of a parkway. During the 1930s, the CCC was actively involved in creating and improving roads throughout rural areas and parks

Transportation planning in the United States is in the midst of a shift similar to that taking place in the United Kingdom, away from the single goal of moving vehicular traffic and towards an approach that takes into consideration the communities and lands through which streets, roads, and highways pass ("the context"). More so, it places a greater emphasis on passenger rail networks, which had been neglected until recently. This new approach, known as Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS), seeks to balance the need to move people efficiently and safely with other desirable outcomes, including historic preservation, environmental sustainability, and the creation of vital public spaces.

The initial guiding principles of CSS came out of the 1998 "Thinking Beyond the Pavement" conference[9] as a means to describe and foster transportation projects that preserve and enhance the natural and built environments, as well as the economic and social assets of the neighborhoods they pass through. CSS principles have since been adopted as guidelines for highway design in federal legislation.[10] Also, in 2003, the Federal Highway Administration announced that under one of its three Vital Few Objectives (Environmental Stewardship and Streamlining) they set the target of achieving CSS integration within all state Departments of Transportation by September 2007.[11]

In recent years, there has been a movement to provide "complete" transportation corridors under the "complete streets" movement. In response to auto-centric design of transportation networks, complete streets encompass all users and modes of transportation in a more equitable manner.[12] The complete streets movement entails many of the CSS principles as well as pedestrian, bicycle and older adult movements to improve transportation in the United States.[12]

These recent pushes for changes to the profession of transportation planning has led to the development of a professional certification program by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the Professional Transportation Planner in 2007. In response an advanced form of certification - the Advanced Specialty Certification in Transportation Planning was developed by the American Planning Association thereafter in 2011. The Certified Transportation Planner credential is only available for those professional planners (AICP members) who have at a minimum of eight years of transportation planning experience.

Technical process

Most regional transport planners employ what is called the rational model of planning. The model views planning as a logical and technical process that uses the analysis of quantitative data to decide how to best invest resources in new and existing transport infrastructure.[13]

Since World War II, this attitude in planning has resulted in the widespread use of travel modelling as a key component of regional transport planning. The models' rise in popularity can also be attributed to a rapid increase in the number of automobiles on the road, widespread suburbanization and a large increase in federal or national government spending upon transport in urban areas. All of these phenomena dominated the planning culture in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Regional transport planning was needed because increasingly cities were not just cities anymore, but parts of a complex regional system.[14]

The US process, according to Johnston (2004) and the FHWA and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) (2007), generally follows a pattern which can be divided into three different stages. Over the course of each of three phases, the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) is also supposed to consider air quality and environmental issues, look at planning questions in a fiscally constrained way and involve the public. In the first stage, called preanalysis, the MPO considers what problems and issues the region faces and what goals and objectives it can set to help address those issues. During this phase the MPO also collects data on wide variety of regional characteristics, develops a set of different alternatives that will be explored as part of the planning process and creates a list of measurable outcomes that will be used to see whether goals and objectives have been achieved. Johnston notes that many MPOs perform weakly in this area, and though many of these activities seem like the "soft" aspects of planning that are not really necessary, they are absolutely essential to ensuring that the models used in second phase are accurate and complete .[14]

La segunda fase es el análisis técnico. El proceso implica muchas maniobras técnicas, pero básicamente el desarrollo de los modelos se puede desglosar de la siguiente manera. Antes de comenzar, la MPO recopila enormes cantidades de datos. Estos datos se pueden clasificar en dos categorías: datos sobre el sistema de transporte y datos sobre el uso del suelo adyacente. Las mejores MPO recopilan estos datos constantemente. [ 14 ]

La herramienta de análisis que se utiliza en Estados Unidos se denomina Sistema de Modelado de Transporte Urbano (UTMS, por sus siglas en inglés), aunque a menudo se la conoce como el proceso de cuatro pasos . Como sugiere su nombre, el UTMS consta de cuatro pasos: generación de viajes, distribución de viajes , elección del modo de transporte y asignación de viajes/rutas. En la generación de viajes, la región se subdivide en un gran número de unidades de análisis más pequeñas llamadas zonas de análisis de tráfico (TAZ, por sus siglas en inglés). Con base en el número y las características de los hogares en cada zona, se genera una cierta cantidad de viajes. En el segundo paso, la distribución de viajes, estos se clasifican en categorías según su origen y propósito: generalmente, estas categorías son trabajo desde el hogar, otros viajes desde el hogar y fuera del hogar. En cada una de las tres categorías, los viajes se asocian a las zonas de origen y destino utilizando los datos recopilados.

En la elección del modo de transporte , los viajes se asignan a un modo (generalmente automóvil o transporte público) según la disponibilidad en una zona determinada, las características del hogar dentro de esa zona y el costo del modo para cada modo en términos de dinero y tiempo. Dado que la mayoría de los viajes en bicicleta o a pie suelen ser más cortos, se asume que se realizaron dentro de una zona y no se incluyen en el análisis. Finalmente, en la asignación de rutas, los viajes se asignan a la red. A medida que se asignan viajes a partes específicas de la red, la velocidad del vehículo disminuye, por lo que algunos viajes se asignan a rutas alternativas de manera que todos los tiempos de viaje sean iguales. Esto es importante porque el objetivo final es la optimización de todo el sistema, no la optimización para un individuo en particular. El producto final son los flujos de tráfico y las velocidades para cada enlace de la red. [ 14 ]

Ideally, these models would include all the different behaviours that are associated with transport, including complex policy questions which are more qualitative in nature. Because of the complexity of transport issues, this is often not possible in practice. This results in models which may estimate future traffic conditions well, but are ultimately based on assumptions made on the part of the planner. Some planners carry out additional sub-system modelling on things like automobile ownership, time of travel, location of land development, location and firms and location of households to help to fill these knowledge gaps, but what are created are nevertheless models, and models always include some level of uncertainty.[14]

The post-analysis phase involves plan evaluation, programme implementation and monitoring of the results. Johnston notes that for evaluation to be meaningful it should be as comprehensive as possible. For example, rather than just looking at decreases in congestion, MPOs should consider economic, equity and environmental issues.[14]

Intersection with politics

Although a transportation planning process may appear to be a rational process based on standard and objective methodologies, it is often influenced by political processes. Transportation planning is closely interrelated to the public nature of government works projects. As a result, transportation planners play both a technical and a coordinating role. Politicians often have vastly differing perspectives, goals and policy desires. Transportation planners help by providing information to decision makers, such as politicians, in a manner that produces beneficial outcomes. This role is similar to transportation engineers, who are often equally influenced by politics in the technical process of transportation engineering design.

Integration with urban planning

Transport isochrone maps are a measure of accessibility which can be used by urban planners to evaluate sites.[15][16][17][18]

See also

References

  1. ↑Southern, A. (2006), Modern-day transport planners need to be both technically proficient and politically astute, Local Transport Today, no. 448, 27 July 2006.
  2. ↑Hans-Heinrich Bass, Than Trung Nguyen (April 2013). "Imminent Gridlock". dandc.eu.
  3. ↑McLeod, Sam; Schapper, Jake H.M.; Curtis, Carey; Graham, Giles (February 2019). "Conceptualizing freight generation for transport and land use planning: A review and synthesis of the literature". Transport Policy. 74: 24–34. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2018.11.007. hdl:20.500.11937/71069. S2CID 158794278.
  4. ↑Department for Communities and Local Government (2001), Planning Policy Guidance 13
  5. ↑Department for Transport (1998), A New Deal for Transport
  6. ↑Department for Transport (2000), Transport Ten Year Plan 2000
  7. 12Transport Planning Society (2006), Draft National Occupational Standards for Transport PlanArchived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑"Green Book supplementary guidance: optimism bias". HM Treasury. 21 April 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  9. ↑State of Maryland (1998), Summary of Thinking Beyond the Pavement conferenceArchived 21 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑U.S. Senate (2005), Senate Report 109-053 - Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act OF 2005Archived 15 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑Federal Highway Administration (2003) FHWA's Vital Few Goals — Environmental Stewardship and StreamliningArchived 30 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  12. 12"National Complete Streets Coalition".
  13. ↑Levy, J. M. (2011). Contemporary Urban Planning. Boston: Longman.
  14. 123456Johnston, R. A. (2004). The Urban Transportation Planning Process. In S. Hansen, & G. Guliano (Eds.), The Geography of Urban Transportation (pp. 115–138). The Guilford Press.
  15. ↑"Planning for Town Centres; Practice guidance on need, impact and the sequential approach"(PDF). Department for Communities and Local Government. December 2009. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
  16. ↑ "Evaluación del transporte; Directrices para propuestas de desarrollo en Irlanda del Norte" (PDF) . Departamento de Desarrollo Regional . 9 de noviembre de 2006. Archivado del original (PDF) el 19 de agosto de 2012. Consultado el 26 de marzo de 2012 .
  17. ↑ "Guía técnica sobre planificación de la accesibilidad en los planes de transporte local" (PDF) . Red de planificación del transporte local. Archivado del original (PDF) el 20 de noviembre de 2007. Consultado el 26 de marzo de 2012 .
  18. ↑ Barker, Kate (diciembre de 2006). "Barker Review of Land Use Planning" (PDF) . Consultado el 26 de marzo de 2012 .

General

  • Kemp, Roger L., Ciudades y automóviles: Manual de mejores prácticas , McFarland and Co., Inc., Editores, Jefferson, NC, EE. UU. y Londres, Inglaterra, Reino Unido, (2007). ( ISBN) 978-0-7864-2919-6).
  • Portal de conocimiento para el apoyo a la toma de decisiones espaciales