Author(s)

S. Campbell & S. White

Abstract

Current transport planning methods do not deliver accessibility in a sustainable way—a phenomenon illustrated by the dominance of road construction as a means to provide access in cities. This research proposes a comprehensive evaluation methodology for investment decisions aimed at improving urban accessibility—Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) for transport. Using IRP in transport planning means agreeing on a metric for improved accessibility in a location and then developing a range of ‘options’ to meet this need. Each ‘option’ is evaluated in terms of cost per unit of improved accessibility. We propose that cost effective decisions will only arise from comparison of the full range of options using a consistent methodology. Keywords: cost and investment assessment, transportation demand management, transport sustainability, economic and social impact. 1 Introduction Historically transport planning has sought to address objectives of providing capacity for increased trips and reducing travel time. In the industrialised world post-WWII, increased suburban growth and motorisation led to an emphasis on road construction as the preferred strategy (Kitamura & Fuji [1]) and evaluation methods tended to reinforce this by focussing on travel time, trips, or even vehicle movements as the unit of service. Since the 1970s and the emergence of environmental and public health concerns about motor vehicle use, there have been attempts to incorporate environment and public health factors, and a multimodal perspective into transport planning and evaluation tools. Most of the emphasis in evaluating transport systems has focussed on project evaluation, typically using some form of cost benefit analysis and/or multicriteria analysis as the main tool/s (Bristow & Nellthorp [2]). Some of these

Keywords

cost and investment assessment, transportation demand management, transport sustainability, economic and social impact.