Fast Wheels Slow Traffic: Urban Transport Choices

Abstract

This book describes the results of over a decade of developing and applying the to urban transport problems. The approach builds on a small but highly significant tradition of viewing societal problems in a systemic manner, typified by works of Russell Ackoff in systems engineering and Marvin Manheim in transportation, and numerous valuable specialized contributions in both transportation and methodology. These are integrated through the use of Kelvin Lancaster's path-breaking theory of consumer and producer behavior. The method brings together, in a natural and intuitive fashion, the technology of production of transport goods and services, the urban setting, the needs and limitations of users, the financial constraints of the public sector, and the environmental consequences of the actions considered. The author draws extensively on the experiences of cities at different levels of development and with diverse characteristics. Part I of the book comments on the urban transport problem and presents the characteristics approach to the analysis of urban transport choices. Part II then describes the characteristics of transport modes, users, and cities. In Part III, a number of modes and choices for developing viable and sustainable transport strategies are analyzed. The characteristics approach is presented in a more formal manner and applied to the analysis of a number of real-world transport problems. This is followed by an essay on viable and sustainable transport strategies. The concluding chapter summarizes the conceptual and practical differences between the characteristics approach and the traditional transport planning paradigm.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 17 citations exist upstream.