Urban Transportation - A Special Challenge for Civil Engineers

Transportation has historically had a major influence on cities - their locations, growth and form. Civil engineers were the leading public servants in construction of railway and transit systems. With diversification of transportation and, particularly, growth of highways, the solutions to urban transportation have become extremely complex. Instead of only building new facilities, it is now necessary to coordinate different modes. Planning of transportation is defined at four levels: individual facilities, single mode networks, intermodal systems and city-transportation relationships. It is shown that the latter two levels have not been adequately performed. Coordination of systems must be given greater attention. A brief review of successes and failures in urban transportation in different countries, with particular emphasis on Japan, is given at the end. The transportation and civil engineers' roles should change to include a much greater emphasis on systems approach in planning, design, operation and policy. It is particularly important that engineers give attention to the methods for achieving efficient and attractive cities.