Transportation Planning Definition and Factors Affecting
Definition
Transportation Planning can be defined as Activities related to changing the way transportation services are provided. Transportation plays a vital role in our everyday lives and considered to be an important component of mankind’s infrastructure. All of us travel somewhere almost every day, whether it might be
- To get to office or school
- To go shopping
- For goods transportation
- For trade
- For general communication
In fact the role of transportation system can not be ignored and can be rightly called as a backbone for prosperity of any state. The provision of transportation facility is the responsibility of the state and usually dealt as a public sector utility rather than the private sector. Transportation planners are usually civil engineers specialized in the field of Transportation engineering, however for efficient and optimized performance of the whole system it’s a team work of Civil and Automobile engineering.
Responsibilities of Transportation Planners
The key duties of transportation planners can be summarized as
- Transportation Planning
- Transportation Design
- Transportation Management
- Transportation Administration
- Transportation Operations etc
Transportation planners are concerned with changing ways to provide efficient transport system to the state keeping in view the traffic behavior, traffic volume and site constraints. Once a practical transportation plan is prepared with the consensus of all relevant filed of engineering its implementation becomes easier. However a badly planned transportation planning can cause serious traffic and social issues to the state and public such as in case of improperly planned traffic roundabouts which not only waste plenty of time but may also cause serious traffic accidents.
Factors Affecting Transportation Planning
The following are the main factors which demands to be considered in any transportation planning system.
- Car
- Driver and Car
- Road , Driver and Car
- Activities causing traffic flows, Road, Driver and Car
Different countries have different traveling patterns such as in sub continent left way is used for going and right way is used as coming back, while in European countries its opposite so care must be taken in this regard.
