A Contribution to Urban Transport System Analyses and Planning in Developing Countries

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a contemporary statement of existing approaches to transport-land use planning in urban and regional areas to advise practising transport planners and students. The chapter concentrates on the knowledge that are available for the synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of alternative land use-transport-systems plans and regulations. First, the transportation planner must develop an understanding of the planning process before attempting to address herself to the broader polices issues. The first objective of this chapter is to provide transportation planners with an understanding of the land-use models and their application to urban and regional planning problems. The final objective covers policy, regulations and plans. Absence of physical space between people and firms is the definition of Economists to cities. Cities appear to supply the necessity to eliminate transport costs. Density lowers the costs of interacting with other people and speeds the flow of goods, people and ideas. The location and structure of cities is driven by the desire to eliminate transport costs. In this context, transportation technologies have been the primary determinant of the location and structure of cities. There is increasing concern across the world about increasing traffic congestion and the costs it imposes, particularly on accessibility, the environment, other social factors, such as accidents, and the economy in general. Growing personal car-mileage is engendering the well-known effects on the environment and transport systems, especially roads, which are not able to cope with the increasing amounts of traffic. Further development of innovative, integrated and well-balanced policies is strongly needed. Strong and ongoing growth in mobility, especially in road traffic, means that transport trends are unsustainable if only current policies are pursued: with constraints on resources, space, safety and the environment there are only limited possibilities to extend transport supply to safeguard accessibility. It is quite clear that the need for travel cannot really be avoided; it is crucial for the performance of social and economic functions in any society. People are not travelling much more often than twenty years ago, but they are travelling further and with greater use of the private car. Increasing car ownership is a central component of this (Transland, 2000). There is a lack of knowledge about the interaction between land use and transport and the related planning consequences. Institutional demands for integrated policymaking is 13