London's experience with the pilot 12.5 km red route scheme shows the potential of optimizing routes in a metropolitan area. The flow of traffic, especially public transport, can be drastically improved. For buses that also means increased reliability which together with the reduction - in journey time leads to more demand. The scheme also contributes to traffic safety. Crucial to its success has been a `more than usual' level of enforcement. Optimizing is also open planning: to be done by looking in detail for potential improvements in every situation along a route. At the same time the interdepence of all the partial improvements has to be taken care of. That often means coordination between a large number of local authorities and other parties (also for the enforcement). Complex problems of political authority and ideology do of course play a role in traffic policy in large metropolitan areas. (A)
Samenvatting