TRANSPORTATION

PLANNING IN THE SYSTEMS

CONTEXT
CIV5308:MODULE II
 RATIONALE

The Provision and operation of a transportation system requires a continuous planning

function to ensure that the mobility requirements of the community are supplied and
maintained at a level found to be acceptable to its members at an economic, social and
environmental cost within its capabilities. The output of the planning function should be in
terms of what needs to be done, what alternative approaches can be used, how well these
alternatives match the community desires and what steps ultimately needs to be taken to
implement plans satisfactorily.
The complexity of providing for transport needs defies the use of the simple design
approach that can be applied to most engineering problems. In other words, the usual
engineering rationale for design is the determination of the demand to be placed upon a
system and the provision of sufficient capacity to satisfy anticipated levels of demand.
The system under design is isolated and independent. This enables the engineer to compute
an optimal solution in the prescribed sequence of steps.
• The formulation of a transportation plan is not approached as easily. First , the
problem is not isolated and independent. For example urban transportation
solutions are an aggregation of a number of smaller transportation and traffic
engineering solutions.
• Second, urban transportations systems are themselves a small part of overall
regional and national transportation infrastructure. Proper overall transportation
planning requires an examination of problems at various levels because policy
decisions at any one level have severe effects on proposed plans.
• The most striking problem in plan design is not, however, the multiplicity of at which
the solution must be considered. The chief difficulty lies in the fact that, unlike most
engineering solutions, a transportation plan will affect its own environment when
implemented. This change of environment will modify the demand on the system,
possibly invalidating the criteria and input used in the initial formulation of the plan.
The cyclic interaction of transportation facilities and land use is shown in figure 1.
• Land use has been found to be the prime determinant of trip generation activities.
The level of trip generation activity and the orientation of trips within the study area
will determine the need for facilities. Provision of these facilities alters the
accessibility of the land itself, which in turn helps determine the value of land
 Increased Changed
Land Value Land Use

Increased
Increased
Trip
accessibility
Generation

Greater
Added Traffic
Transportat
Needs
ion facilities

Figure 1: Land Use and Transportation Plan.

• Land value being the major determinant of land use, the planner is faced with a cycle in
which alteration in any one element causes change both to all other elements and to itself.
• TYPES OF PLANNING
• Transportation planning involves two different types of planning.
 Short and medium-term
 Long term
Short and medium term planning is concerned with obtaining maximum or optimal operation
from existing facilities. As such in the analysis and evaluation stages, the planner is dealing
with a limited number of criteria.
In proposing solutions, the number of options is likely to be limited and the planner usually is
constrained to options that are totally contained within the budget allotted to transportation.
Therefore the scale of the problem usually is quite limited and the analysis and evaluations
while being detailed are usually simple in structure. This type problem comes under the generic
term transportation systems management.
 LONG TERM (STRATEGIC) OR SYSTEM APPROACH
• The system approach is a decision-making process for complex problem
solving composed of :
1. System Analysis: A clear evaluation of the combination of all elements that
structure the problem, and those forces and strategies needed for the
achievement of an objective.
2. System Engineering: Organising and scheduling the complex strategies for
problem solution, and the development of procedures for effecting alternate
solutions.
a. The team tackling the problem is interdisciplinary in make-up. All facets of the
problem are considered, not simply those that conveniently fall within one
discipline .
b. Throughout the analysis the team uses scientific methods. This requires that a
theory must be formulated to account for a set of observed facts and also
checked to determine its predictive validity.
c. The work is carried out according to a predetermined sequence.
The use of systems theory or scientific decision-making has one most important advantage.
It is that in tackling even the most complex problem using a structured and repeatable
methodology, different planners working independently would evolved very similar
solution. This inspires confidence from decision makers in planners proposals.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LONG-TERM PLANNING
The aim of the comprehensive long-term transportation planning is to satisfy optimally the
goals and objectives of the community with respect to mobility, subject to feasibility,
resource and impact constraints. A number of early comprehensive transportation studies
failed or led to what were later to be seen as less than satisfactory solutions.
These failures are now known to be due to an incomplete understanding of the interactive
nature of transportation planning and comprehensive planning in the broadest sense.
The interactive processes can be divided into two separate areas; the philosophical and the
operational elements of planning. In any successful plan these two areas must be in broad
balance and the decisions taken in one area must take cognizance of those in the order.
 PHILOSOPHICAL ELEMENTS

• VALUES: The underlying basic qualities upon which the ethics, morals and
preferences of societies, groups and individuals are based. At least in the
medium term these are irreducible and do not change.
• GOALS: The idealised desired end at which the planning process is aimed.
Proposals within the plan are aimed at moving society toward these ideal
goals.
• OBJECTIVES: Measurable operational statements of individual goals, defined
without reference to attainability in terms of budgetary or other resource
constraints.
• CRITERIA: Indices of measurement capable of defining the degree to which an
objectives or goal has been attained.
 ELEMENTS OF LONG TERM (STRATEGIC) TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
• There are three basic elements that constitute any long term transportation planning process.
 Forecast of demand for the system at the various levels of facility provision being considered.
 Description economic, social and environmental changes that will accompany the development of the
system at these same levels of facility provision.
 An evaluation of the system in terms of benefits and disbenefits accruing from the various options
considered.
In analysing the system, transportation planners find that they are dealing with three differing groups of
individuals having very different opinions on the sustainability of the system. These groups are the operators,
the users and non-users.
The operator is concerned with such matters as capital cost, operating costs, operating revenues, and the
viability of the plan from an institutional viewpoint such as union cooperation, or governmental funding and
control.
The user is concerned with such factors as monetary cost( fare, tax), journey time from real origin to real
destination , safety and security, reliability and comfort and convenience.
Non-users of transport facilities are affected by such factors as air, water and solid waste pollution; noise
• Visual intrusion , safety, land use changes and social disruption and economic effects
(sometimes beneficial, sometimes not). A successful transportation plan is a plan that
balances needs of the operator and the user against the benefits and disbenefits accruing
to the non-user.
• The Land Use Transportation Model
• The land use transportation model can be divided into two distinct phases.
 The calibration phase
 The projection phase
In the calibration phase, the models are built and tested using data from a base period; and in
the projection phase the models developed are used to determine future transport demand
based on social economic projections for a design year.
There are seven principal models used in the process of long-term planning. They are
a. Population Model
b. Economic Activity Model
c. Land use Model
  Amount of land in different uses.
• Trip Generation Model
 Net density of development in the base
• Trip Distribution Model year
• Model Split Model  Employment by land use type
• Traffic Assignment Model  Time and Distance to highest valued
A number of models have been land of study area
developed that relate changes in land  Transit Accessibility
use to such independent variables as;  Quality of water and sewer
 Accessibility to employment Some of the dependent variables that
 Percentage of available vacant land have been predicted include:
Increase in residential units
 Land Value
Increase in Commercial land use
 Intensity of land use
Increase in Industrial land use
 Measures of Zone size
Increase in retail land use
• The four remaining models are of considerable interest for strategic transportation planning
generation, distribution, modal split and assignment. The planning area is divided into a
number of relatively homogenous traffic generating zones. The total traffic flow is modelled
by treating the traffic as being generated by the centre of gravity of each zone and moving
between and within zones over the principal transportation network. Conventionally, the
models are developed sequentially.
• Trip generation models indicate how many trips are generated in each zone for a particular
journey purpose.
• Trip distribution models describe how many trips originating in one particular zone end in
each of the other zones.
• Modal split analysis models the proportion of trips that accrue to the various competing
modes of transportation.
• Finally, the traffic assignment model indicates which individual routing will be taken by a trip
between its origin and destination.
 FUTURES ANALYSIS AND SCENARIO BUILDING
• Scenario building is a technique used to model futures in the strategic transportation
planning. In this type of modelling a series of future end states are predicted. These end
states include the intangible, which are so difficult to model in more conventional analysis.
The effect of intangibles on response variables of interest (such as transport demand) are
estimated where precise calculations prove impossible.
• For example, for a particular national plan one end state might be predicted on the following
assumptions.
 Low economic growth rates over the next 20years.
 High environmental concern
 Weak trade union activity
 High levels of automation
 Medium levels of population growth
 Strong centralised government with little decentralisation of governmental activity
 Medium levels of population growth.
• Other end states would be predicted using different assumptions about
these same factors. Scenario building has a number of advantages.
o The end states are not necessarily the specific and are therefore more realistic
for really long term plans.
o The interrelationships between a number of intangibles can be estimated, as
can their effects on response variables in the end states.
o The models are robust in that they are capable of predicting across social,
technological and economic discontinuities.
o They are truly a long-term tool even though they are of limited use in the short
or medium term