Transportation planning

Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments and 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).

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 multi-disciplinary 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. For example, in Hanoi the increasing number of motorcycles is responsible not only for environmental damage but also for 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.

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Wikipedia