INTRODUCTION
Challenges in Transportation Planning for Asian Cities
Ashish Verma
Guest Editor: Dept. of Civil Engineering, and Center for Infrastructure,
Sustainable Transportation, and Urban Planning 共CiSTUP兲, Indian Insti-
tute of Science 共IISc兲, Bangalore, Karnataka, India; formerly, Dept. of
Civil Engineering., Indian Institute of Technology 共IIT兲 Guwahati,
Assam, India. E-mail: ashishv@civil.iisc.ernet.in; or rsashu@yahoo.com
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 45.248.66.154 on 07/10/21. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Most of Asian cities 共Delhi, Mumbai, Tokyo, Hanoi, Asthana,
Bandung etc., to name a few兲 are typically characterized by high-
density urban areas, absence of proper control on land use, lack of
proper roads and parking facilities, poor public transport, poor
infrastructure for nonmotorized transport, lack of road-user disci-
pline, etc. This results in transportation problems, including acci-
dents, congestion, and pollution, taking a very different and more
severe shape than those in cities of developed countries. These
transportation issues elicit several interesting questions for Asian
cities:
• What methodologies/approaches have been developed to
evolve effective and sustainable solutions for Asian cities?
• How do the methodologies/approaches of cities in developed
countries need be modified so that they can be adopted in
Asian cities?
• What new technologies or approaches that do not currently
exist still need to be developed?
• What are the technological barriers and research frontiers that
merit immediate investigation?
The purpose of this special issue is to address questions such
as these and present a group of groundbreaking research papers
that address the challenges in transportation planning of Asian
cities. The objective is to produce an archival snapshot of the state
of knowledge in this field and formulate strategies for future re-
search directions. The response to the call for papers for this
special issue was overwhelming and after following a rigorous
review process, this issue recognizes twelve papers, which I con-
sider a good fit to the theme of the issue. These twelve papers
together cover aspects related to Asian cities such as nonmotor-
ized transport 共NMT兲 planning, public transport 共PT兲 and inter-
mediate public transport 共IPT兲 planning and management, traffic
microsimulation, traffic management, land-use planning, environ-
mental impact of transport, and transport infrastructure financing.
The papers herein have been selected after rigorous review by a
number of experts in the academic and research community. The
topics are related to real-world issues and the findings are of
interest to both the practice and research communities.
The paper by Rastogi titled “Willingness to Shift to Walking or
Bicycling to Access Suburban Rail: Case Study of Mumbai,
India” discusses the results of willingness to shift study conducted
in catchment areas of suburban rail stations in Mumbai, India,
with the purpose of promoting walking and bicycling for rail
access. Through this study, the author attempts to estimate the
potential of shifting to walking or bicycling in the study area. The
paper titled “Assessment of the Pedestrianization Policy in Vigan
City: UNESCO World Heritage Site” by Amistad focuses on the
assessment of pedestrianization policy in Vigan City, a UNESCO
world heritage site. It aims to characterize the area and pedestrian
JOURNAL OF URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT © ASCE / MARCH 2010 / 1
J. Urban Plann. Dev., 2010, 136(1): 1-2
movements with the implementation of a pedestrianization
scheme, analyze the perception of respondents on the necessity,
acceptability, and impact of such a scheme, and test the relation-
ships between perceptions and characteristics of respondents.
Laxman et al., through their paper “Pedestrian Flow Characteris-
tics in Mixed Traffic Conditions,” attempt to analyze and charac-
terize the pedestrian flow under mixed traffic conditions, and
present an interesting comparison with cities of developing as
well as developed countries.
The paper by Kasturia and Verma entitled “Multiobjective
Transit Passenger Information System Design Using GIS” pre-
sents a multiobjective, generalized cost 共GC兲 based passenger in-
formation system 共PIS兲 design for a multimodal transit system
that integrates geographical information system 共GIS兲 processing,
network analysis, user interfacing, and database management. The
authors argue the necessity of the GC approach for PIS design for
the Indian scenario, where the various modes of transport are
generally not harmonized, and the transfer time from one mode to
another may be very large. In the paper “Modeling Generalized
Cost of Travel and Its Application for Improvement of Taxis in
Kolkata” by Chintakayala and Maitra, the authors use the GC
approach to analyze the willingness to pay 共WTP兲 with respect to
improvements in taxi attributes in Kolkata, and present viable
options for changing old taxies with new ones.
In the paper by Arasan and Vedagiri entitled “Microsimulation
Study of the Effect of Exclusive Bus Lanes on Heterogeneous
Traffic Flow,” a microsimulation model is developed and vali-
dated to evaluate the impact of provision of an exclusive bus
lane on heterogeneous traffic flow, which is typically seen on
Indian roads. The important finding of this paper is to arrive at a
permissible volume to capacity 共V/C兲 ratio for a given level of
service 共LOS兲, while providing exclusive bus lanes. The paper by
Mathew and Radhakrishnan entitled “Calibration of Microsimu-
lation Models for Nonlane-Based Heterogeneous Traffic at Sig-
nalized Intersections” attempts to simulate heterogeneous traffic
characterized by diverse vehicles, changing composition, lack of
lane discipline, etc., that results in very complex behavior. A
methodology is proposed for representing nonlane-based driving
behavior and calibrating a microsimulation model for highly het-
erogeneous traffic at signalized intersections using genetic algo-
rithms and VISSIM. The paper “Delay Function for Signalized
Intersections in Traffic Assignment Models” by Mazloumi et al.
proposes a delay function for traffic assignment models, which
considers the drivers’ behavior in Iran. The traffic assignment
model of the city of Mashhad, Iran, is used for evaluating the
proposed delay function in a real network.
The paper titled “Space Development Modeling of Urban
Regions in Developing Countries” by Mir et al. presents an inter-
esting methodology for the development of a space development
共SD兲 model for a developing region, especially considering the
rehabilitation of a slum population. The proposed methodology
is tested by applying it to simulate the space development in
Mumbai Metropolitan Region 共MMR兲, India. The paper by Han
et al. entitled “Assessment of Policies toward an Environmentally
 Friendly Urban Transport System: Case Study of Delhi, India”
examines the effectiveness of policies in reducing transport influ-
ences on environment and energy use by taking the passenger
transport system in Delhi as a case and developing a system
dynamics model for scenario analysis from the base year 2006
to 2020. The paper concludes that accelerating the development
of the railway network, together with decreasing the fuel in-
tensity, slowing down road network extension, and imposing fuel
taxes will be effective instruments in building an environmen-
tally friendly urban transport system. The paper “Mechanisms
for Transportation Infrastructure Investment in Developing Coun-
tries” by Khasnabis et al. examines the different investment me-
chanisms for transportation infrastructure projects involving the
private enterprise in developing countries. The study examines
the prospects of public-private ventures for funding transport
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by 45.248.66.154 on 07/10/21. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
infrastructure projects in developing countries by taking a case
2 / JOURNAL OF URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT © ASCE / MARCH 2010
J. Urban Plann. Dev., 2010, 136(1): 1-2
study of Mumbai Pune Expressway/National Highway 4 共MPEW/
NH4兲 and concludes that if properly planned, joint ventures can
be mutually beneficial. Last but not the least, the paper by Basu
and Maitra titled “Evaluation of VMS-Based Traffic Information
Using Multiclass Dynamic Traffic Assignment Model: Experience
in Kolkata” evaluates the effect of on-road variable message sign
共VMS兲 based traffic information on a mixed traffic stream using a
multiclass and stochastic dynamic traffic assignment model. The
study finds that the influence of VMS is more predominant at
higher traffic volume levels.
It is my hope that these papers provide real insight into the
challenges in transportation planning currently faced by Asian
cities and offer scientific methods that can be used to address the
unique problems and issues faced by them. I truly appreciate Pro-
fessor Chang, editor of the Journal, for giving me the wonderful
and precious opportunity to organize this special issue.