WHY NEW TECHNOLOGIES CANNOT RADICALLY IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF URBAN TRANSPORTATION

In recent years a great deal of time and effort has been expended on the development of new modes of transport for cities. It is argued in this paper that this work is unlikely to be very productive because the major remaining flaw in the provision of transportation services - the inability of one mode to provide a good service to concentrated and dispersed trip ends - seems unavoidable. To make the required breakthrough a new mode must be frugal in its demands for space, flexible in its operation and fast. But an analysis of the performance of existing and prototype modes suggest that there is a fundamental technological barrier that precludes any one mode from performing well in more than two out of these three ways. This implies that any further improvements in travel for the urbanite must be made through existing modes and their derivatives and will be quite limited. It also suggests that the only possible way of substantially improving urban transportation is to build or rebuild towns so that one of the important mode attributes mentioned above is rendered superfluous.(a)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1767712
• Corporate Authors:

  GORDON AND BREACH SCIENCE PUB.

  AMSTERDAM:
  ,    
• Authors:
  • POULTON, M C
• Publication Date: 1980

Media Info

• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 75-80
• Serial:
  • Transportation Planning and Technology
  • Volume: 6
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISSN: 0308-1060
  • Serial URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gtpt20/current

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: City planning; Future; Improvements; Innovation; Intelligent transportation systems; Land use; Mode S; Passenger service; Performance; Technological forecasting; Technology; Transportation; Transportation modes; Transportation planning; Urban areas; Urban development; Urban transportation
• Old TRIS Terms: Advanced systems; Future concepts
• ITRD Terms: 1152: Future transport mode; 9108: Improvement; 356: Land use; 3855: Technology; 354: Town planning; 1155: Transport; 313: Urban area
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General); I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00322805
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 30 1981 12:00AM