[sustran] FW: Please comment at your first convenience

eric.britton at ecoplan.org eric.britton at ecoplan.org
Mon Aug 16 18:40:38 JST 2004


Dear Colleagues,

 

I certainly don't think it is news to anyone on this forum, but at the
bottom of just about all our discussions is an underlying, fundamental
dilemma: we need an entirely new paradigm for designing and implementing
transport in cities.  In this context I would like try an idea on you
and ask you for your feedback and ideas, so that we can correct eventual
weaknesses and omissions, and in turn we can make a strong authoritative
statement about this in two a-brewing city pilot projects to test these
ideas

 

Let me see if I can start with a quick and crude but I hope both fair
and essential correct characterization of the 'old paradigm', and then
move on to how we need to work with this acquired expertise in the new
one.

 

A.       Traditional transport policy and planning is, to characterize
it very broadly:

 

1.      Closed system

2.      Centralized

3.      Authoritarian

4.      Expert based

5.      Engineering

6.      Costly

7.      Well ordered

8.      Bounded

9.      Reductive

10.  Statistics based (historical)

11.  Binary (private/public transport)

12.  Increasingly technical and tool oriented

 

In making this characterization I am not trying to condemn or belittle
our transport and traffic planner colleagues --  rather I am trying to
understand what is going on, with both eyes focused on the fact that if
we look at actual results in city after city in both the advanced
economies and even more so in the developing world, we cannot honestly
say that this approach is in itself proving adequate for our collective
decision making and actions.

 

This is however an excellent approach for managing an ordered system.

 

B.       But the reality of transport in cities is not quite the mirror
image of this approach. It is, rather:

 

1.      Open system

2.      Totally decentralized

3.      Personal: Based on a plethora of personal choices

4.      Inherently unstable: Made by individual citizens, each for their
own good reasons and subject to change at any time

5.      Myriad: Huge numbers of decisions and actions are involved

6.      Decisions hedged in by large numbers of non transport related
factors

7.      Made by an increasingly educated and informed public.

8.      Organic

9.      Learning system potential (if only we can get it right)

 

We can continue the list of course, but the bottom line is what we are
describing here is a classic chaotic system. 

 

C.                 Conclusion:  We need an entirely new transportation
paradigm for planning, policy and practice - call it for now an Open
Systems Model.  But this does not mean that we can afford to turn our
backs on the enormous technical competence that the transportation
planning fraternity ahs developed, including in the critical area of
transport modeling and simulations analysis.

 

But more on that to follow.

  

.........

 

Kind thanks for sharing your thoughts and suggestions with us on this,
either in private if you prefer to  <mailto:postmaster at ecoPlan.org>
postmaster at ecoPlan.org or to the group as a whole.  I look forward with
enormous interest and hope to your responses and guidance.

 

Eric Britton

 

 

 

 

 

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