Transport in an urban context

Abstract

There are three distinct kinds of problems with which the urban transport planner has to deal. Congestion is the one to which both analytical and policy making effort have been traditionally directed. More recently environmental objectives and a concern for the transport facilities available to disadvantaged groups have been given a higher priority. Unfortunately, neither of these objectives is adequately catered for by standard analytical methods or transport planning instruments and recent analytical and institutional developments embody attempts to rectify this defect. But the task of converting good intentions in these respects into good policies is complex and some of the apparently obvious solutions, such as public transport subsidy, may even be counterproductive. It would be unwise to expect any cheap and easy solutions to the problems to emerge.