The ever-growing concentration of population in large metropolitan areas renews interest in the specific treatment of highways in these areas. Whereas inter-city communication networks are constantly deriving more and better commuter benefits, the same cannot be said for networks within city centes, especially in densely-populated metropolitan areas, where more often than not, speeds of business traffic are stable in the city core, if not decreasing in reduced values. The answer to the needs of transportation of people and goods, in inter-city relations, usually boils down to a problem of availability of resources, given the reduced range of options in terms of choice of one road design over another, which is normally defined by the type of traffic that will be using the road and by the conditions of the terrain to be covered. There are different ways of handling traffic: staggering morning rushhour, toll roads in the acces infrastructures or ring-road systems for metropolitan areas, lanes reserved for high occupation vehicles (for cars with two or more passengers), lanes reserved exclusively for public transportation, flexible management of highways with reversible lanes depending on traffic volume, and urban by-laws to reduce traffic, etc. Putting many of the above-mentioned measures into effect depends on the combination of the road infrastructure operation and the transportation services that make use of it, with their (re) design, which may occasionally cause coordination problems if responsibilities are clearly independent. (A)
Abstract