TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 3
2 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROCESS ............................................................................. 3
3 TRANSPORTATION POLICY ..................................................................................................... 4
3.1 TRANSPORTATION POLICY OBJECTIVES ..................................................................... 4
4 THE TRANSPORT POLICY FORMULATION PROCESS ......................................................... 4
4.1 OBJECTIVE-LED STRATEGY FORMULATION .............................................................. 4
4.2 PROBLEM ORIENTED APPROACH .................................................................................. 5
5 POLICY INSTRUMENTS/MEASURES ....................................................................................... 5
1 INTRODUCTION
Transportation planning is a process that comes up with information that will help make
decisions for future development and management of transportation systems. It is focused on
developing long range (15-30years) transportation plans. Areas covered by transportation
systems include:
 Balancing supply with future travel demands.
 Address problems/challenges such as:
- Travel demand alternatives to reduce congestion.
- Land-use/transportation co-ordination.
- Air quality measures: to reduce pollution
- Economic development
- Fuel reduction measures: consumption, tax issues
- Safety measures: improved travel
- Redevelopment activities: Retrofitting
Transportation planning aims at, or helps to create:
 High quality transportation facilities and services.
 Reasonable and economic costs.
 Minimal environmental impact.
 Enhance economic activity.

2 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROCESS

The chart below shows the transportation planning process

Definition Generation Solution Evaluation Implementation

of Problem of solution Analysis and and monitoring
Choice

Feedback to all the steps

 The emergence of additional

performance problems
 The to which the problem
has been assessed
 Real world performance
3 TRANSPORTATION POLICY
Transportation policies are guiding principles (plan of action) that influence how the
transportation system behaves to achieve desired outcomes and avoid transport problems.
These include:
 Transit system priorities
 Road expansion plans
 Fuel tax: impact on pollution, economic expansion
 Emission limits
3.1 TRANSPORTATION POLICY OBJECTIVES
The transport policy objectives are divided into various categories, these include:
 Statements of vision: These are broad indications of the type of area in which politicians
and the public wish to see.
 Higher level objectives: These are also called aims or goals, they identify attributes of
transportation system or side effects which can be improved as a realisation of a vision.
 Quantified objectives: These provide a clear basis for assessing performance strategies
and they need to be clearly defined if the threshold is to be realistic.
 Solution specific objectives: Solutions are identified within the objectives and may lead
to an overall strategy that is less than the appropriate area’s needs.

4 THE TRANSPORT POLICY FORMULATION PROCESS

The formulation of a transport policy can be tackled in two ways:
 Objective-led strategy formulation.
 Problem oriented approach.
4.1 OBJECTIVE-LED STRATEGY FORMULATION
This way of formulating a transport policy includes the following advantages:
 Provides a logical basis for proposing solutions and also assessing any proposals
offered by others.
 It also ensures that assessment of alternatives is done in a logical, consistent and
comprehensive way against the full set of objectives.
 It involves the assessment of implemented measures which improves the ability to
judge the potential of similar measures elsewhere and predict their impact.
 Does regular monitoring which provides the means of not just checking on a scale
current problems but also, through attitude survey, on the perception of those problems.
Summary of the objective-led strategy formulation is shown on the chart below:
 Objectives/Indicators

Current Conditions

Assesses Problems

Future Conditions
Develops Options

Model

Compare Solutions

Implementation

Assess Performance

Monitor

4.2 PROBLEM ORIENTED APPROACH

This approach starts by defining the problems. It starts from the second box in the objective-
led formulation flow chart.
This approach has an advantage of being easy to be understood and a disadvantage of it being
dependant of developing a full list of potential problems at the outset.

5 POLICY INSTRUMENTS/MEASURES
The means by which objectives described above can be achieved and problems overcome
include:
 Infrastructure: New or expansion of roads, new rails, pedestrian walk etc.
 Management: Include traffic management, traffic claiming, bus priorities, and heavy
vehicle lanes.
 Information: signs and markings, signals, real-time transit.
  Pricing: fuel taxes, bus fares, parking charges.
 Land use: development densities, master plan, urban form etc.
 Attitudinal and behavioural measures
The key question with each measure is with its ability to achieve one or more objectives.