The context in which transportation system is studied is also very diverse and
are mentioned below:
- Planning range: Urban transportation planning, producing long
range plans for 5-25 years for multi-modal transportation systems in urban
areas as well as short range programs of action for less than five years.
- Passenger transport: Regional passenger transportation, dealing
with inter-city passenger transport by air, rail, and highway and possible with
new modes.
- Freight transport: Routing and management, choice of different
modes of rail and truck.
- International transport: Issues such as containerization,
inter-modal co-ordination.
The strong interrelationship and the interaction between transportation and the
rest of the society especially in a rapidly changing world is significant to a
transportation planner.
Among them four critical dimensions of change in transportation system can be
identified; which form the background to develop a right perspective.
- Change in the demand: When the population, income, and land-use
pattern changes, the pattern of demand changes; both in the amount and spatial
distribution of that demand.
- Changes in the technology: As an example, earlier, only two
alternatives (bus transit and rail transit) were considered for urban
transportation. But, now new systems like LRT, MRTS, etc offer a variety of
alternatives.
- Change in operational policy: Variety of policy options designed
to improve the efficiency, such as incentive for car-pooling, bus fare, road
tolls etc.
- Change in values of the public: Earlier all beneficiaries of a
system was monolithically considered as users. Now, not one system can be
beneficial to all, instead one must identify the target groups like rich, poor,
young, work trip, leisure etc.
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