Urban transportation planning must account for everything from major city events to commercial deliveries and service provisioning services, and should something go amiss, it's critical that emergency responders know how to respond swiftly and effectively.
Public transport organizations can leverage business intelligence tools to real-time adapt their offer to passenger demands, collecting feedback and measuring satisfaction levels in real time.
Developing an Urban Transportation Plan
Transportation within cities has never been more crucial; yet congestion continues to worsen and by 2050 the average city resident could spend 100 hours annually stuck in traffic jams.
Effective city transport solutions require taking an integrative approach. Coordination between transportation and urban development can help alleviate many problems such as excessive traffic congestion and air pollution, economic losses due to travel delay delays, and worsening environmental conditions.
Our transport consulting services experts can assist in creating a more sustainable urban transportation system by employing various analytic methods and mathematical models to evaluate alternatives. For instance, we can utilize AHP-fuzzy TOPSIS models to identify and select promising strategies for urban transportation projects. Furthermore, our experts can assist with parking management improvements, optimizing curb space utilization and preventing car idling to help alleviate congestion while encouraging greener transportation options. Lastly, they can even design an intuitive onboard system for charging e-vehicles that automatically builds routes to save energy consumption as well as optimize driving patterns to reduce fuel consumption.
Designing a New Transit System
Designing an urban transit system involves striking a balance between passenger convenience, profit and operational costs. To draw passengers in, the network must provide reliable service that is fast compared to other modes. Furthermore, it must be cost-effective and user friendly; something which is sometimes challenging since urban transport systems are so complex.
Networks should also feature robust spatial coverage with appropriately spaced transit stops to limit walking times to and from the system and ensure all destinations can be reached within an acceptable amount of time.
Many cities do not find it economically viable to offer direct routes between origin-destination pairs. When this occurs, transfers become necessary which can be an inconvenience for users. Therefore, planning the transfer station locations and schedule carefully in order to minimize total transfer counts by analyzing traffic patterns and demand density at each station.
Implementing a Transit System
Transforming an already great transit system into something exceptional requires striking the proper balance between efficiency, convenience, and multimodality. It requires developing an appropriate climate change mitigation plan; an efficient fare increase/service cut management strategy; and tools for optimizing routing/scheduling optimization.
Sustainability for public transportation agencies depends upon high ridership and revenue figures. New York City's MTA provided over 3.8 billion trips across subway, bus, commuter rail, light rail, streetcar and trolley services in 2019.
Focusing on efficiency and convenience can make an enormous difference to a transit agency's cost management efforts. Transit lanes, route optimization, road construction or modernization projects, digital upgrades and digital upgrades all help increase speed and predictability along routes; increasing frequency through ride-hailing companies or creating a network of central bus stops increases efficiency as well as customer satisfaction - plus, clear branding makes a system seem like a genuine alternative to private vehicle travel.
Managing Transit Operations
Transit agencies utilize various strategies to oversee the operations of their system. For instance, they might create their own dynamic trip-planning and ticketing service that allows people to map multimodal urban journeys and purchase tickets via app; or analyze user activity data (in accordance with applicable data privacy laws) collected by such services in order to identify possible improvements for its systems.
On-demand transit provides unprecedented flexibility among mass transit modes. According to research by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, on-demand minibus services that pick up passengers at designated points using smartphone applications can adapt their routes and capacity according to changes in passenger demand.
In order to become a transit planner, you will likely require either an engineering degree, civil engineering with a concentration on transportation or urban planning with transport consulting as an emphasis. Additionally, management courses may also be required in addition to passing at least one management exam.
