For many years, the transportation planning process in u.s. cities was heavily influenced by guidelines and regulations from the federal government. These regulations not only mandated what documents should be produced by the planning process, but heavily influenced the selection of techniques that would be used for analysis and evaluation of alternatives. Two major developments have changed this characteristic of u.s. transportation planning. First, the federal government has adopted a more flexible approach to transportation planning, that is, not requiring as many products and process characteristics as it once did. Second, the rapid development of microcomputer technology has provided many planning agencies as analysis capability that makes them more capable of addressing short-term, system management alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current trends in transportation planning and to discuss the implication of these trends on the future direction of transportation planning in the united states. The first section of the paper briefly presents the important political, economic, and social trends that have evolved over the past 10 years and which have affected transportation planning. The next section discusses the characteristics of the transportation planning process that seem to describe the process evolving in many u.s. cities. Finally, the paper concludes with several predictions on the likely characteristics of transportation planning 10 years hence.(a) for the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 276520.
Samenvatting