MASS TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Mass transit, also called mass transportation, or public transportation, the movement of
people within urban areas using group travel technologies such as buses and trains. The
essential feature of mass transportation is that many people are carried in the same
vehicle (e.g., buses) or collection of attached vehicles (trains). This makes it possible to
move people in the same travel corridor with greater efficiency, which can lead to lower
costs to carry each person or—because the costs are shared by many people—the
opportunity to spend more money to provide better service, or both.

Mass transit systems may be owned by private, profit-making companies or by

governments or quasi-government agencies that may not operate for profit. Whether
public or private, many mass transportation services are subsidized because they cannot
cover all their costs from fares charged to their riders. Such subsidies assure the
availability of mass transit, which contributes to making cities efficient and desirable
places in which to live. The importance of mass transportation in supporting urban life
differs among cities, depending largely on the role played by its chief competitor, the
private automobile.

People travel to meet their needs for subsistence (to go to work, to acquire food and
essential services), for personal development (to go to school and cultural facilities),
and for entertainment (to participate in or watch sporting events, to visit friends). The
need for travel is a derived need, because people rarely travel for the sake of travel
itself; they travel to meet the primary needs of daily life. Mobility is an essential feature
of urban life, for it defines the ability to participate in modern society.

Travelers make rational choices of the modes they use, each choosing the one that
serves him or her best, although best may be viewed differently by each traveler.
Transportation services in a city define the alternatives from which travelers must
choose, the activities available to them, and the places to which they can go. The
transportation available to an individual is the collective result of government policies,
the overall demand for travel in the region, competition among different modes, and the
resources available to each individual to buy services. Urban transportation services
directly affect the character and quality of urban life, which can differ among individuals
who have access to different kinds and amounts of transportation services.

Evolution of urban mass transportation

Growth in the 19th century

The history of urban mass transportation is first a story of the evolution of technology,
from walking, to riding animals, to riding in groups on vehicles pulled by animals, and
eventually to cable cars, larger-capacity steam-powered trains, electric trains, and
motor buses powered by internal-combustion engines. It is a story of gradually
increasing speed, vehicle capacity, and range of travel that has shaped cities and
structured the lives of those who live in them.

The horse-drawn omnibus, first used in France in 1828, allowed as many as 25 or 50

people to share a ride across muddy urban streets. These were operated by
private entrepreneurs who intended to profit by serving the busiest corridors in town.
Starting in New York City in 1832, operators installed rails in the streets to provide a
smooth roadbed both for the benefit of passengers and to minimize the energy required
to pull the vehicles. The cable car, a rail vehicle dragged by a long cable pulled by steam
power from a central station, was invented in 1873 to master the steep hills of San
Francisco. This idea spread to Chicago and other cities in order to avoid the unpleasant
side effects of horses in dense urban areas.

The omnibus-on-rails, the cable car, and eventually steam and electric trains were limited
to operations on fixed guideways (rails), and extending the service required installing
more rails, a large and semipermanent investment. This inflexibility of a rail-based system
was balanced by its low rolling resistance, which permitted the connection of several
vehicles into trains where the demand for travel in the corridor was sufficiently
high. Trains were efficient for carrying large numbers of travelers because a single
guideway (track) could carry many trains each day, and the number of workers did not
have to increase in proportion to the number of vehicles: one motorman or engineer
could operate a train with many cars, perhaps with the help of one or two conductors to
collect fares.

In the middle of the 19th century, the motive power for urban mass transportation
advanced to independent steam locomotives, which could pull many cars and thus serve
busier routes. Steam locomotives operated over longer distances than cable cars, and
they were more reliable and considerably faster because they did not depend on a
single, fragile cable. Beginning in Berlin in 1879, steam was gradually replaced
by electric power, which was cleaner and quieter and permitted operation in tunnels so
that urban rail transit could be placed beneath streets and buildings. This allowed
construction of new rail lines with minimal disruption to existing buildings, and it
permitted mass transportation to operate free and clear of the congested streets of
19th-century cities, which were often filled with animal-drawn vehicles, pedestrians, and
vendors’ pushcarts. The idea of separating the right-of-way from other transportation
modes and activities of the city was important to the early and continued success of
mass transit. Vehicles operating on exclusive guideways do not face the delays and risks
of collisions experienced by vehicles operating in mixed traffic, and therefore they can
provide faster, more reliable transportation. This has become a particularly important
competitive advantage of rail transit since the advent of the automobile.

Some cities, starting with New York in 1868, constructed elevated rail transit lines to
accomplish the same end. It was less costly and dangerous to build a rail line above the
street on an iron and steel trestle at the second-story level, as compared with digging
a tunnel. It soon became apparent, however, that the noise of trains rumbling by, the
street obstructions of columns to support rail structures, and the dark areas created
below these facilities were high prices to pay for rapid urban transit.

Cities and means of travel grew together, with the shape and extent of cities
determined largely by the available transport technology. Urban transportation services
defined the geographic area in which people functioned, limiting how far one could travel
to work, acquire food, exchange services, and visit friends. When walking or riding a
horse was the primary mode of urban travel, cities were necessarily small. When larger
animal-drawn vehicles became common, cities grew in extent.

As technology advanced, the speed of travel increased from an average (including

station stops) of 2 to 3 miles per hour (mile/h) for walking to 4 to 6 mile/h for animal-
drawn vehicles to 15 to 20 mile/h for steam trains, and cities grew along the corridors
served by urban mass transportation. Small, circular towns reached out along steam rail
lines, which became increasingly common in urban service among European
and American cities in the latter half of the 19th century. Residences and businesses
were located close to these lines, and particularly close to the stations, to make the
best use of available transportation.

Just as transportation helped to define the geographic extent of the city by the
arrangement of its lines and stations and its speed, the demand for travel by city
residents determined which transportation technology could succeed in the
marketplace. Higher-density developments, closely spaced houses and apartment
buildings, multistoried office buildings, and large factories could support major
investments in exclusive-guideway rail transit with frequent service. Lower-
density communities could sustain only infrequent service, with transit vehicles operating
in mixed traffic on city streets. In the late 1800s it was not uncommon for the land
developer and the transit operator to be one and the same, using a
street railway system to promote the sale of new housing and attracting the residents
of that housing to ride the railway.
The automobile and mass transportation
In the developed world and particularly the Western Hemisphere, the automobile entered
the transportation market as a toy for the rich at the beginning of the 20th century. It
became increasingly popular because it gave travelers important new freedoms: to visit
many different places (while mass transportation served only fixed routes), to make trips
at any convenient time (while mass transportation operated on a predetermined
schedule), and to carry several people and their packages for one fixed price (while
mass transportation charged fares for each person in a family or group). As a result, in
Europe and North America the automobile became mass transportation’s chief
competitor.

The automobile is an individual technology that does not rely on group riding and
common travel patterns for its success. The convenience of the automobile freed people
from the need to live near rail lines or stations; they could choose locations almost
anywhere in an urban area, if roads were available to connect them to other places.
Many states in the United States established motor fuel taxes that were used only to
build and maintain highways. Thus, the auto highway system became largely self-
sustaining.

Automobile ownership grew rapidly after World War II, particularly in the United States
and western Europe. During the war, automobile motors, fuel, and tires were in short
supply. There was an unsatisfied demand when the war ended and plenty of production
capacity as factories turned off the war machine. Many people had saved money
because there was little to buy, beyond necessities, in the war years. Workers relied
heavily on mass transportation during the war and longed for the freedom and flexibility
of the automobile.

As automobiles became more widespread, there was political and economic pressure to
expand the road network. A demand for housing, particularly single-family homes, was
met in the United States with government loans and other incentives to expand housing
in suburban areas. Life in the suburbs became feasible with the automobile, which
provided mobility everywhere, anytime. Thus, after World War II, at least in the United
States, the automobile, the auto industry, the urban road network, and the suburbs
grew together. The result was a dispersed urban geography, often called sprawl, which
characterized not only the suburbs of large cities but also whole cities that experienced
the bulk of their growth after the automobile became popular, such as Phoenix (Arizona),
Los Angeles, Dallas (Texas), and Orlando (Florida). This is a geography in which travel is
less focused on nodes (more dense, centrally located city and suburban downtowns) and
corridors. It is a dispersed market that is difficult to serve economically with mass
transportation.

In many western European countries, postwar automobile growth was constrained by

government policies, which heavily taxed both cars and their fuels. Mass transportation
systems were maintained and expanded with government subsidies, and public policies
kept central areas strong or fostered suburban growth in carefully designed higher-
density nodes, in some cases (particularly in Britain and Sweden) in the form of
systematically designed new towns linked to older central cities by high-quality mass
transit lines. In less-developed parts of the world, mass transportation was shielded
from automobile competition by the inability of citizens to afford cars and by government
policies that kept both automobile and gasoline prices high.

The analogue to the automobile for the mass transportation industry was the motor bus,
a self-propelled vehicle operating on the highway in mixed traffic. Buses were introduced
into mass transportation services in the 1920s. Like the automobile, they offered
operating flexibility in the short term, to route around fires and other temporary street
obstructions, and in the long term, to be shifted easily into new areas needing service.
By the 1960s in the United States, the bulk of urban mass transportation services were
operated with buses. Some busier lines serving downtown areas were operated as
express services, picking up and discharging travelers at the ends of the routes and
skipping intermediate stops to provide faster travel.

While buses offered economy and flexibility to operators, they brought important
disadvantages. Operating on city streets mixed with other traffic, they could not travel
faster than cars, and, because they made frequent stops, they were usually slower. This
problem can be avoided by operating express buses on freeways or special lanes and
roadways reserved for high-occupancy vehicles. Unlike trains on exclusive guideways,
when the demand for bus service increases, adding more vehicles requires additional
drivers, which makes operating costs increase as fast as ridership. As a result there is
less advantage to be gained from serving high-density corridors with buses compared
with trains. This problem has been reduced by using larger buses—double-deck vehicles
in Europe and longer, articulated buses in both Europe and the United States. Because
bus routes are so flexible, builders do not have the same incentive to locate
developments near bus lines, which may be rerouted on short notice, as they do to
locate near rail lines.

The 20th century began with rapid growth in transit service in the United States. Transit
riding has consistently moved with the state of the economy, growing during the boom
period after World War I and dropping precipitously during the Great Depression, when
unemployment was high. World War II saw a large increase because employment was high
and automobiles were scarce. The steady decline after the war shows the impact of
growth in automobile travel and the migration to the suburbs. Since the 1970s, a
considerable amount of federal and state money has been directed toward improving
and extending mass transportation systems, and ridership has increased in response.
The population of the United States has grown steadily over the 20th century, and the
fraction of people living in urban areas increased to nearly 70 percent, and therefore
the urban travel market as a whole has grown considerably. The mass transportation
share of this travel market, however, has declined substantially during the latter half of
the 20th century.
The benefits of urban mass transit

Advantages to individuals and communities

Where the automobile is a major competitor to mass transportation, the use
of transit has declined, reducing revenues available to pay the costs of these systems
and services, and—in a setting where government subsidies are essential for sustaining
mass transit—political support has eroded as well. As more people rely on the
automobile, their interest in directing public resources to improving the highway system
dominates their concern for subsidizing transit.
For those who can use the automobile for quick and reliable transportation, this trend
simply represents the evolution of urban transport from collective riding to individual
riding, from the economies of sharing a relatively high-speed service in a corridor where
travel patterns are similar or the same, to the privacy of one’s own “steel cocoon,”
which can go anywhere, anytime, without the need to coordinate travel plans with the
schedule and routes of a transit operator attempting to serve large groups of people.
The automobile has captured a large share (more than 95 percent by 1983) of urban
trips in the United States, and only in some cities of more than two million people does
the mass transportation share reach or exceed 10 percent of the trips.

If the automobile provides superior service for the majority of riders, why not let the
market operate without government intervention, perhaps leading to the demise of
transit? While this has happened in some medium-size and small American cities, mass
transportation can be important for a number of reasons.

First, some portion of the urban travel market is made up of people who cannot use the
automobile to travel because they are handicapped, elderly, or too young to drive.
Some people cannot afford to own and operate a car, and the young, the old, and the
handicapped often fall into this category. If these people are to have the mobility
essential for subsistence and satisfaction in their lives, some form of public
transportation is necessary.

Second, transit provides a community with a way to move potentially large numbers of
people while consuming fewer resources. A single bus, if it is full (50 to 80
passengers), can carry as many people as 50 or 60 cars, which normally operate with
fewer than 2 occupants. The bus requires less street space, equivalent to 2 or 3
automobiles, and, when it is full, it requires much less energy to move each person.
Because emissions from internal-combustion engines are proportional to
fuel consumption, a full bus will produce less pollution per person-trip than an
automobile. Finally, because they are operated by professional drivers, buses have a
lower accident rate than automobiles. Electric rail rapid transit trains produce even
less air pollution and are far safer per person-trip than either automobiles or buses.

Transit, when it is well utilized, then, produces important benefits for the community: air-
quality improvements, less land consumption than an auto-dependent transportation
system, lower energy requirements, and lower accident costs. A single lane of an urban
freeway may carry 5,000 persons per hour (see Table). A light rail transit line (electric
trolley cars) on a separate guideway taking the same space as the highway lane might
carry as many as 14,000 persons per hour. High-quality mass transportation serving
dense employment and shopping areas, such as the central business district of a city or
the downtown area of a suburban community, can help ensure the economic success of
those areas by making it easier and less costly for large numbers of workers and
shoppers to enter and leave. A successful transit system also reduces the need for
downtown parking, making land available for more productive uses. Thus public
transportation provides support for particular land development patterns, such as
downtowns, and higher-density employment, educational, cultural, and retail activity
centres.

These benefits accrue not only to transit travelers but also to other residents and to
the owners of land and businesses. Indeed, a major benefit of mass transportation
services goes to automobile travelers, who experience less congestion and shorter
travel times. There is no monetary market for these broadly distributed public goods
produced by mass transportation. There is no practical way to sell clean air or lower
accident rates to city dwellers to raise funds to subsidize and expand mass transit or to
restrict access to these benefits only to those who pay for them. Some communities do
raise revenues for transit and other purposes by levying special fees on properties
particularly well-served by fixed-guideway transit (for example, in downtown areas or near
rail stations) to capture some of the increased value produced by raising their
accessibility with public transportation.

These public transportation benefits provide the justification for government subsidies.
Their generation is strongly dependent on the utilization of mass transportation. The
heavier the use of public transit, the larger will be the benefits produced. Yet even if
only a small portion (5–10 percent) of the travel market uses transit in the rush hours, a
major reduction in congestion can result. On the other hand, buses and trains running
nearly empty in the middle of the day, during the evening, or on weekends do not
produce sufficient benefits to the community to justify the high costs to provide these
services.

Effects of public policy

The benefits of mass transportation result from the utilization of these services: more
utilization produces more benefits. Crowded buses and trains signify a smaller market
share for the automobile, with its attendant air pollution, congestion, accidents, and
excessive land consumption. Heavy utilization of mass transportation can produce a
larger revenue stream from passenger fares, which can help support these systems,
either by reducing subsidy requirements or, in a few very high-density travel corridors,
actually covering all the costs of providing mass transportation.

There are a number of ways to increase and maintain mass transit ridership. These differ
by context and government policy, and none offers guaranteed results. Keeping transit
utilization high is much easier where competition from the automobile is limited. In Third
World cities, where the automobile has never taken hold, transit, bicycles, and walking
remain dominant modes. Cities are more densely settled, and work, shopping, and
residential activities are closely intermingled so that trip distances are short. This
encourages walking and the use of bicycles, with their low energy requirements. Even if
mass transportation is slow and crowded, it may be the dominant mechanized travel
option in such settings.

Cities in many developed countries in Europe and Asia have long-standing government
policies that simultaneously controlled the growth of automobile ownership through high
taxes on vehicles and their fuel; restricted land development to encourage high-density
activity centres, including suburban new towns, as well as mixed land uses to keep trips
short; and funneled a steady stream of public resources to subsidize mass transit
operations and make capital investments to extend systems into new areas. These public
investments in transit were generally not matched with similar investments in facilities for
the automobile. Indeed, a number of cities around the world have restricted automobile
travel to their downtown areas by defining auto-free zones (e.g., Gothenburg, Sweden),
prohibiting the growth of parking, or charging high entry tolls for vehicles carrying only
one or two people (Singapore).

In the United States the approach has been to allow the free market, for both travel and
land development, to determine the role of competing modes. Mass transportation
does attract high market shares where the automobile is inherently less competitive, as,
for example, travel to dense downtown areas during the rush hours. In the central areas
of larger cities such as New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, and even Los Angeles,
street congestion can be intense and parking fees high. Where high-quality mass
transportation is available (particularly rail service, which is as fast as or faster than the
automobile), with frequent departures and high reliability, it can capture 50 to 80
percent of all travel to downtown in the rush hour. At other hours of the day, the mass
transportation share of downtown travel may drop to 20 percent, and across the
regions in which such cities are centred, the all-day transit share may be as little as 5 to
10 percent of trips.

Mass transit is critically important to the economic and social health of these cities, and
it is also important in other communities where its market share is lower but its
contributions to peak-period congestion reduction and mobility assurance are significant.
These effects provide the argument for public involvement in transit, through ownership,
development, operation, and service subsidies. The key policy choices about mass
transit in the United States concern how to spend public funds to produce these
benefits, including decisions about capital investments for new and replacement
technologies, the quantity and quality of services to offer, and how to pay for all of this.
Mass transit finance

Costs
The costs of providing mass transportation services are of two types, capital and
operating. Capital costs include the costs of land, guideways, structures, stations, and
rolling stock (vehicles); operating costs include labour to operate the vehicles, maintain
the system, and manage the enterprise; energy; replacement parts; and liability costs
(or insurance). The principal factors affecting the cost of providing mass transportation
service are the type of technology used, particularly the nature of the guideway; the
extent or size of the system, measured in terms of the length of the routes; and the
peak passenger demand.

The choice of technology affects both capital and operating costs. Bus systems are less
costly to buy than fixed-guideway technologies using steel-wheeled cars on steel rails or
rubber-tired cars on concrete beams. Buses require more operators (one driver per
bus), and they do not benefit from automation, whereas only one or two operators can
run a 10-car train carrying 1,000 passengers, and some rail systems are nearly fully
automated.

Mass transportation systems that operate on guideways separated from other traffic
are more expensive because of guideway costs but are also faster, safer, and more
reliable. Guideways can cost $10 million per mile at ground level in low-density areas
with occasional street crossings or as much as $200 million per mile in bored tunnels
under densely developed cities. Light rail transit, designed to operate singly or in trains
up to four units long, can be used on guideways separated from other traffic for high-
speed sections and intermingled with street traffic in downtowns or near stations. This
flexibility can make light rail less expensive, and service can be brought closer to the
origins and destinations of travelers. Light rail stations can simply be stopping points
marked with signs or separate stations with protected waiting areas. They may be a few
blocks or as much as a mile apart.
Rail rapid transit systems use heavier cars designed to operate in trains of up to 10 or
12 cars. They are used on exclusive guideways, often in tunnels or on elevated
structures, and their average speeds (including station stops) may approach 30 mile/h.
Rapid transit stations themselves can be costly structures, either off-street
or underground, typically spaced at one-half- to one-mile intervals.
Some communities have commuter rail systems, descendants of older intercity rail lines,
which connect distant suburbs with downtown areas. The technology is identical or
similar to intercity passenger trains, with diesel-electric locomotives pulling unpowered
coaches. Speeds are high (35–40 mile/h average), stations are 2–5 miles apart, and
guideways are separated from street traffic, with occasional street crossings at grade
level.

The size of the mass transportation operation during the peak period is also a major
determinant of costs. For example, 4,800 people can be carried in one corridor during
the rush hour with buses operating one minute apart (60 buses per hour), each carrying
a standing load of 80 persons. To provide each traveler with a seat (offering better-
quality service), each bus would carry only 50 persons, and 96 buses per hour would be
needed.

The actual number of buses to be purchased (and the number of drivers required) would
depend on how long it would take a bus to make a round-trip. This depends on the
length of the route (longer routes take more time and would require more buses), as well
as the average speed (faster routes would allow buses to get back to the starting point
sooner, requiring fewer buses). In the above example, if a route were 5 miles long
(round-trip) and the bus made an average speed of 10 mile/h, it would take one-half hour
to make a round-trip. If one bus were needed every minute, then 30 buses would be
required, because the first bus would get back to the starting point one minute after the
30th bus left. To give each passenger a seat, one bus would be needed every 37.5
seconds (96 buses per hour), so 48 vehicles would be required.

This illustrates the way both capital and operating costs are affected by the number of
passengers to be carried in a given time period, the route length, the average operating
speed, and policies on crowding (whether or not each passenger gets a seat). If
the transit operator buys 48 buses to serve this route, many will be idle during the
midday and evening, because travel volumes will be much lower in those periods. Yet the
capital cost of the buses cannot be reduced if the rush hour demand is to be met. At
least 48 drivers will be required, many of whom will not be occupied outside the peak
travel periods. If the morning and evening rush periods are widely separated in time, it
may be necessary to hire two sets of drivers or to ask drivers to work split shifts—for
example, four hours during the morning rush and four more hours in the late afternoon.
Workers may demand wage premiums if the spread between the start and finish of the
workday is excessively long. This illustrates the inherent inefficiencies in transit services,
because they must be designed to meet peak-period travel needs. Mass transportation
services that have higher capacity (passengers per hour) and offer faster, more reliable
service (e.g., rail rapid transit) are more costly, in terms of both capital and operating
costs, than lower-capacity, slower services (e.g., buses). To make decisions about
investing in new mass transportation services, it is useful to examine the cost per
passenger carried as well as the total cost to implement and operate a system.
Analyses show that fixed-guideway transit requires much higher corridor travel demands
(perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 passengers per hour or more) to reduce the unit cost
below that of light rail or bus systems. Such demand densities are found only in larger
cities, and, as the trend toward suburban growth and the spreading of travel demand
over regions continues, there are fewer locations where large investments in rail transit
can be justified.

Revenues
Transit costs are paid from passenger fares and, in most developed countries, public
subsidies. The most common way to collect passenger fares is by cash payment on the
vehicle (for bus and light rail systems without closed stations) or upon entry to the
station (for systems requiring entry through closed stations). Normally,
the driver collects fares, although some intensively used bus and light rail systems carry
conductors on the vehicles to collect fares and make change. Because making change
slows the boarding process, most American systems require prepaid tokens or exact
fares. It is more common in European cities to use an honour fare system, in which the
passenger purchases a ticket before entering the vehicle, cancels that ticket using an
on-board machine, and presents the ticket to fare inspectors on request. While only 2
to 10 percent of the passengers may be checked for valid tickets, fare evasion is low
because fines for improper tickets are high and are collected immediately.

Monthly, semimonthly, and even daily passes are sold on many systems, which keeps
fare purchase off the vehicle and makes the process of checking for prepayment fast.
The monthly pass is particularly convenient for frequent riders, for it does not require
having the correct change, and unlimited rides are allowed, so transit riding is
encouraged. Many communities in the United States and Europe offer substantial
discounts for monthly passes, because passes reduce fare collection costs and
encourage transit use. Reduced-price fares are commonly offered to students, the
elderly, and handicapped persons.

To make prices more equitable, some transit operators vary charges for different
trips. Distance-based fares, proportional to the length of the trip, are a better
reflection of the cost of service, and travelers tend to accept the idea that they should
pay more for longer trips. The disadvantage of distance-based fares is that the operator
must distinguish travelers by their trip lengths, which is done by checking fares when
passengers enter and leave the system. This makes fare collection more time-consuming
and costly, particularly if the validation is done by conductors or fare clerks. Modern
systems use magnetically encoded fare cards read by computer-controlled turnstiles
when passengers enter and leave the transit system. When travelers buy fare cards, the
amount of their purchase is encoded on the card, and this balance is decreased by an
appropriate amount for each trip.

Some transit operators charge differently by time of day, based on two concepts: first,
the cost to provide transit service is higher during the rush-hours because equipment
and personnel requirements are greater then; second, most rush-hour trips are for the
purpose of going to and from work, and travelers are willing to pay more for these
because of the monetary reward they get for the trip. Automated fare
collection facilitates time-of-day pricing as well as distance-based fares.
Subsidies
Mass transportation fares typically are set below the level necessary to cover full costs,
and the difference is made up by government subsidy intended to create the social
benefits produced when people use transit. In the United States, revenues from
passenger fares typically pay from 10 to 70 percent of operating costs, the lower
number representing lightly used suburban services and the higher number reflecting
intensely used downtown corridor services. The other 30 to 90 percent comes from
state, regional, and local subsidies. Limited federal operating subsidies were made
available beginning in 1974, allocated in proportion to the scale of each city’s transit
operations. The federal role in providing operating subsidies has been declining, and
state and regional governments, along with transit riders (through increased fares), have
made up much of the difference.

Commonly, capital costs for new transit investments in the United States are paid
entirely through government subsidies. The federal government has offered capital
grants for mass transportation since 1964. Decisions about investments in new fixed-
guideway transit services have been made cautiously, and only a few such systems have
been supported. Federal capital subsidies can cover up to three-quarters of the cost of
the investment.

Service quality and quantity

The amount of service offered, especially the geographic and temporal extent of mass
transportation, will determine which trips are served. To meet the needs of captive
riders, broad coverage of the region, the day, and the week is desired. Choice riders
are more likely to consider transit for work trips to dense employment centres during
peak periods.

The most important service quality attribute is travel time from origin to destination.
Several factors contribute to travel time. The first is the average speed of the vehicles,
determined in part by their rate of acceleration and maximum speed but strongly
influenced by the distance between stops and the dwell time at stations. Electric-rail
vehicles can accelerate rapidly and may have top speeds of 70 mile/h, but if stations are
only one-half mile apart, the average speed may be less than 30 mile/h. While longer
distances between stops mean higher speeds and shorter travel times, the time it takes
for travelers to get to and from stations will increase. Thus, to the traveler, increasing
station spacing may not decrease door-to-door travel time.

Travel time also is affected by the frequency of service, the time interval between
vehicles. If transit vehicles depart every five minutes, the travel time experienced by
riders will generally be less than if vehicles are dispatched at 15-minute intervals. If the
transit service operates reliably on a published schedule, travelers can reduce this
waiting time by planning their arrival at the station to coincide with vehicle departures.
Services that are slow or unreliable relative to the automobile will primarily attract
captive riders, while those offering competitive travel times, usually those operating
on exclusive guideways, are appealing to both markets but have the strongest
prospects for attracting choice riders.

The price of transit is less important than service quality to choice travelers, because
under most circumstances mass transportation fares are lower than auto costs. Because
captive riders tend to have lower incomes than choice riders, increasing the price of
transit can be a special burden to them; yet their dependence on mass transportation
makes them less likely to switch modes in the face of a fare increase than choice riders.
Even captive riders find price to be less important in mode-choice decisions than service
quality factors such as travel time and reliability. Field experiments show that improving
other service factors, such as comfort, safety from crime, and cleanliness of vehicles
and stations, contributes less to ridership increases than improvements to the basic
service attributes of travel time, frequency, and reliability.
Trip characteristics
Travelers making regular trips each day, particularly for work or school, are more likely
to take transit. Repetitive trips can be planned in advance to coordinate with transit
schedules; some transit services offer discounts for regular riding; transit service is
usually better during the rush hours, when these trips tend to occur; and there is more
competition for the use of family cars when work trips are made. Mass transportation is
less likely to be used for shopping and recreational trips because of the difficulty of
carrying packages, the requirement to pay separate fares for each person in the group,
and long waiting times and walking distances. Thus, transit use is much lower at midday,
on evenings, and on weekends than it is during peak weekday periods.
Traveler and household characteristics

Among the most influential factors determining travel-mode choice are the
characteristics of the travelers themselves and their households. These factors cannot
be directly affected by public transportation policy, while service characteristics and
even land-use patterns are subject to some control.

The availability of automobiles has a powerful influence on the use of transit, because the
quality of automobile service is commonly superior to that of transit. Auto availability is a
household characteristic, reflecting the interaction between the number of cars in the
household, the number of drivers, and the travel needs of those drivers. The use of
mass transportation is quite low in households having a car for every driver, except
where one or more travelers make regular trips to congested areas where good quality
transit is available. It is much higher in households with fewer cars than drivers. These
are often lower-income households, and so transit usage is often correlated with low
income. To compete with the automobile, transit service must be very good, and, where
it is, the relationship between income and transit use may be reversed—i.e., higher-
income travelers may use transit more.

Gender is an important determinant of transit use, with women traveling by transit more
than men. Men may get priority use of the household car for work trips because they
may be the primary wage earner and because women have traditionally been more
involved in child care and household management. These gender roles are changing
rapidly. Men may be the dominant users of some high-quality downtown-oriented transit
services if their spouses work in suburbs where transit services are limited.

The future of mass transportation

Mass transportation performs important economic, social, and environmental functions in
cities, ranging from providing basic mobility services in developing countries, to securing
the viability of dense business districts, to meeting all the transportation requirements
for those unable to use automobiles, to reducing the negative impacts of automobile
congestion. Decisions about what services to provide, and how to provide and pay for
them, should be based on an understanding of the mission of mass transportation in a
particular community. The diversity of missions, geographies, and market characteristics
leads to a variety of transit service concepts.

The main challenges facing mass transportation policymakers are the dispersal of
development through suburban growth and increases in capital and operating costs,
which require either higher fares, greater subsidies, or both. Responses to these
challenges include alternative service concepts, new technology and automation, more
efficient service delivery, and alternative sources of funding.

Alternative service concepts

In low-density settings, traditional fixed-route, fixed-schedule bus or train operations
cannot meet market needs. If the priority is to discourage travelers from driving alone in
their automobiles, mass transportation services can include a variety of forms of
individualized ride sharing that put 2, 4, or even 10 people in a single vehicle. Some
agencies provide rider matching services and better parking arrangements to
encourage carpooling, the sharing of auto rides by people who make similar or identical
work trips. Car-pool vehicles are privately owned, the guideways (roads) are in
place, drivers do not have to be compensated, and vehicle operating costs can be
shared. On the other hand, carpoolers must coordinate their travel times, which can be
a major inconvenience.

Some agencies and employers have subsidized vanpooling, ride sharing in 8- to 15-
passenger vans provided by the sponsor. One worker is recruited to drive the van to
and from work in return for free transportation and limited personal use of the van.
Passengers pay a monthly fee to the sponsor. Van pools are most successful for
extremely long work trips (e.g., 30–50 miles each way).

The uncertainty associated with putting a new transit service into the marketplace,
particularly in low-density suburban settings, has been avoided by selling subscription
services. Workers with common origins and destinations buy monthly bus tickets in
advance, for which they receive guaranteed seating and a commitment to be delivered
to work on time, usually without intermediate stops. The subscription operator normally
requires a minimum ridership level to assure financial viability of the route.

These unconventional transit services operate about as fast as a private automobile, but
they allow many riders to share the cost, so the price to an individual is usually low.
Their main disadvantage is that they do not give riders schedule flexibility. If there is a
family need to go to work late or come home early, or a work need to stay after hours,
the traveler may be stranded. Those who often require schedule flexibility avoid ride-
sharing services. Some employers and transit operators reduce this obstacle by using
backup vehicles to provide guaranteed rides home.

Low-density trip needs, and particularly the needs of the handicapped and elderly, have
been met with demand-responsive services, in which vehicles are dispatched to pick up
travelers in response to a telephone call. This provides door-to-door service, but if a
vehicle serves several travelers at once, trip times can be very long; if it serves only
one person (or group) at a time, the operating costs can be as high as taxi fares or
higher.

New technology
Automatic train operation has been suggested as a way to increase capacity (by allowing
closer vehicle spacing, since computers can react faster than humans to avoid collision),
reduce travel time (by operating vehicles at higher speeds), and reduce costs.
Some heavy rail transit systems operating on separate guideways are now partially or
fully automated—e.g., the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in San Francisco and
the Metro system in Washington, D.C. The capital cost of automated systems is high,
and promised reductions in operating costs have not always been achieved because of
maintenance requirements.

There have been many proposals, and some field implementations, of small (3–5-
passenger), automated vehicles operating on separate, usually elevated, guideways.
These personal rapid transit (PRT) systems function like “horizontal elevators,” coming
to a station in response to a traveler’s demand and moving directly from origin to
destination. Because of this service pattern and the small size of the vehicles, PRT
systems indeed offer personalized service much like an automobile, including the ability
to control who rides in one’s party, which provides privacy and security. PRT systems
have low capacity in passengers carried per hour, and guideway and vehicle costs are
high. They are best suited for short distribution trips around and within activity centres
such as office complexes, airports, and shopping centres.

When the PRT concept is extended to larger (15–25-passenger) vehicles, the term
automated guideway transit (AGT) is sometimes applied. AGT systems have been built to
provide circulation in downtown areas (e.g., Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida, both
in the United States) and on a dispersed American college campus (West Virginia
University, at Morgantown). The vehicles commonly have rubber tires and operate on
twin concrete beams, elevated or at grade level. AGT is a scaled-down, modernized
application of rail rapid transit—slower, with smaller, lighter cars, more easily fit into
established communities. Monorail systems are an AGT concept using a single guide and
support beam, usually elevated, with a vehicle riding on top of, or suspended beneath,
the beam. Monorail systems can be found at some activity centres in the United
States (e.g., the downtown area of Seattle, Washington; Disneyland in Anaheim,
California; and Pearl City Shopping Center in Honolulu) and a system completed in 1901
continues to serve Wuppertal, Germany. There is no inherent advantage in monorail other
than its novelty. Switching trains from track to track can be complex, and the lack of
standardization makes acquisition and maintenance costly.
Types of Transit Systems
Depending on the needs of their community, departments of transportation and private
providers can organize modes of transportation into a transit system. Common transit
systems in rural regions include fixed-route, flex-route, demand-response, volunteers,
and transit vanpools.

Fixed-Route
Fixed-route transportation systems use buses, vans, light rail, and other vehicles to
operate on a predetermined route according to a predetermined schedule. These types
of systems have printed or posted timetables and designated stops where riders are
picked up and dropped off. Fixed-route systems must meet requirements described by
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure they are accessible for passengers
with disabilities. Fixed-route bus systems are the most common form of public
transportation in the U.S., and 32% of rural bus systems are fixed-routes. However, in
rural areas, traditional fixed-route services may not always meet the needs of residents,
particularly in communities where people do not live along main roads and bus stops are
therefore difficult to access. In these cases, communities may opt for deviated fixed-
route systems to pick up riders at their homes or other more favorable locations.

Flex Route
Flex route transportation systems, also called deviated fixed-route systems, use a
hybrid fixed-route and demand-response model. Flex route systems also use
prescheduled timetables, but may deviate from the predetermined route in order to go
to a specific location such as major employment site, a child care center, or a house.
Flex route services work well when deviations from the fixed-route do not significantly
impact regular timetables.

Demand-Response
Demand-response transit involves small or medium vehicles operating on flexible routes
with flexible schedules that depend on passenger requests. Passengers may use a
subscription service, make advanced reservations, or use real-time scheduling. The
demand-response model also allows passengers to use the transit service for a
particular date and time. Demand-response vehicles may be dispatched to pick up
multiple passengers at several different locations before taking them to their
destinations. Demand-response is the second largest type of public transportation
service in the U.S., and is the main provider of transit service in rural areas, accounting
for 43% of all public transit trips. Demand-response is a more economical service for
low-density populations because rides are only dispatched when needed and go from a
single origin to a single destination.
Ride sharing or ride-hailing is a type of demand-response transportation where
passengers can use a cell phone app to request a driver to meet at a particular time and
location. Although ride-hailing is increasing in popularity in many urban centers around
the country, the reach remains very limited in rural locations. A 2019 Pew Research
Center survey found that 19% of rural residents have used a ride-hailing app. In
addition, knowledge of this mode of transportation is not evenly distributed across the
country, with 54% of rural residents reporting they had never heard of ride-hailing apps.

Volunteer Transportation Programs

Volunteer transportation programs rely on volunteers to drive passengers, often using
their own personal vehicles. Volunteers may also drive buses, vans, or other cars to
provide rides. Volunteer transportation programs may reimburse volunteers for gas,
mileage, or other costs. While volunteer transit programs may be low cost and provide
flexible service, identifying and training volunteers can require significant time and effort.
In addition, rural programs may face issues with insuring volunteer drivers. The National
Center for Mobility Management provides resources for volunteer driver programs.

Transit Vanpool
Vanpools use vans that can typically carry between 5 and 15 passengers. Vanpools are
similar to carpools, with the main difference being that vanpools use vehicles larger than
a car. Vanpooling is typically used by rural residents to travel long distances to their
urban worksites. Formal transit agencies, employers, groups of employees, or other
organizations can organize vanpools. Vanpool passengers may ride full or part time, and
the rider's expenses can vary based on frequency of use or distances traveled. Typically
the cost is less than driving a long distance alone.

Cities and metropolitan areas are centers of diverse activities, which require efficient
and convenient transportation of persons and goods. It is often said that transportation
is the lifeblood of cities. High density of activities makes it possible and necessary that
high capacity modes, such as bus, light rail and metro, be used because they are more
economical, more energy efficient and require much less space than private cars.
Moreover, public modes of transportation provide service for all persons, while cars can
only be used by those who own and can drive them. Thus, cities need and benefit from
public transportation services, which offer greater mobility for the entire population than
people in rural areas can enjoy. Transit systems are also needed in urbanized areas to
make high-density of diverse activities, such as residences, business offices, factories,
stadia, etc., physically possible, while keeping cities livable and attractive for people.
Urban transportation is classified into private, for-hire and public transportation or mass
transit. This chapter covers public transportation systems. Transit modes are defined by
their right-of-way (ROW) category, technology and types of operations. Three ROW
categories are:
• C - urban streets with mixed traffic: Street transit modes include mostly buses, but
also trolleybuses and tramways/streetcars.
• B - partially separated tracks/lanes, usually in street medians. Semirapid Transit, using
mostly ROW B, requires higher investment and has a higher performance than street
transit. It includes Light Rail Transit - LRT, as well as semirapid bus.
• A - paths used exclusively by transit vehicles comprise rapid transit mode or metro
system. Its electric rail vehicles are operated in trains and provide the highest
performance mode of urban transportation.

Buses are the most common transit mode. They operate on streets and have an
extensive network of lines. In some cities they have been upgraded by provision of
exclusive bus lanes and provision of bus preferential signals. LRT represents the most
common mode of semirapid transit. Its articulated electric vehicles operated in short
trains on largely separated tracks provide more attractive and permanent services than
buses at a much lower investment cost than metro systems require. LRT is presently
being developed in many cities around the world that want to make transit services more
efficient and largely independent of traffic congestion. Metro systems have by far the
highest performance - capacity, speed, reliability - of all transit modes. They require
very high investment, but in the long run they are essential for efficient functioning and
quality of life in large cities. Rail transit modes have a strong ability to influence urban
form and contribute to a city’s livability. Other modes, such as Regional Rail and
Automated Guided Transit, are mentioned. Brief descriptions of transit line scheduling
procedure and the general approach to transit planning are also presented.

1. Classification of Transit Systems Urban transportation consists of a family of modes,

which range from walking and bicycles to urban freeways, metro and regional rail
systems. The basic classification of these modes, based on the type of their operation
and use, is into three categories:
(a) Private transportation consists of privately owned vehicles operated by owners for
their personal use, usually on public streets. Most common modes are pedestrian,
bicycle and private car.
(b) Paratransit or for-hire transportation is transportation provided by operators and
available to parties which hire them for individual or multiple trips. Taxi, dial-a-bus and
jitney are the most common modes.
(c) Urban transit, mass transit or public transportation includes systems that are
available for use by all persons who pay the established fare. These modes, which
operate on fixed routes and with fixed schedules, include bus, light rail transit, metro,
regional rail and several other systems.
Urban public transportation, strictly defined, includes both transit and paratransit
categories, since both are available for public use. However, since public transportation
tends to be identified with transit only, inclusion of paratransit is usually specifically
identified.
ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF MASS TRANSPORTATION

Airline
An airline provides scheduled service with aircraft between airports. Air travel has high
speeds, but incurs large waiting times before and after travel, and is therefore often
only feasible over longer distances or in areas where a lack of surface infrastructure
makes other modes of transport impossible. Bush airlines work more similarly to bus
stops; an aircraft waits for passengers and takes off when the aircraft is full.

Bus and coach

Bus services use buses on conventional roads to carry numerous passengers on shorter
journeys. Buses operate with low capacity (compared with trams or trains), and can
operate on conventional roads, with relatively inexpensive bus stops to serve
passengers. Therefore, buses are commonly used in smaller cities, towns, and rural
areas, and for shuttle services supplementing other means of transit in large cities.
Bus rapid transit is an ambiguous term used for buses operating on dedicated right-of-
way, much like a light rail.
Coach services use coaches (long-distance buses) for suburb-to-CBD or longer-distance
transportation. The vehicles are normally equipped with more comfortable seating, a
separate luggage compartment, video and possibly also a toilet. They have higher
standards than city buses, but a limited stopping pattern.
Electric buses

A trolley bus in front of the Baltic railway station in Tallinn, Estonia

Trolleybuses are electrically powered buses that receive power from overhead power
line by way of a set of trolley poles for mobility. Online Electric Vehicles are buses that
run on a conventional battery, but are recharged frequently at certain points via
underground wires.
Certain types of buses, styled after old-style streetcars, are also called trackless
trolleys, but are built on the same platforms as a typical diesel, CNG, or hybrid bus;
these are more often used for tourist rides than commuting and tend to be privately
owned.

Train

A Sydney Trains A Set arriving to Flemington, New South Wales

Passenger rail transport is the conveyance of passengers by means of wheeled vehicles
specially designed to run on railways. Trains allow high capacity at most distance scales,
but require track, signalling, infrastructure and stations to be built and maintained
resulting in high upfront costs.
Intercity and high-speed rail

A Chinese HSR train en route from Nanning East to Beijing West

Intercity rail is long-haul passenger services that connect multiple urban areas. They have
few stops, and aim at high average speeds, typically only making one of a few stops per
city. These services may also be international.
High-speed rail is passenger trains operating significantly faster than conventional rail—
typically defined as at least 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph). The most predominant
systems have been built in Europe and East Asia, and compared with air travel, offer
long-distance rail journeys as quick as air services, have lower prices to compete more
effectively and use electricity instead of combustion.

Urban rail transit

Urban rail transit is an all-encompassing term for various types of local rail systems, such
as these examples trams, light rail, rapid transit, people movers, commuter
rail, monorail, suspension railways and funiculars.

Commuter rail

A SEPTA Regional Rail train in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, a form of commuter rail

Commuter rail is part of an urban area's public transport; it provides faster services to
outer suburbs and neighboring towns and villages. Trains stop at stations that are
located to serve a smaller suburban or town center. The stations are often combined
with shuttle bus or park and ride systems. Frequency may be up to several times per
hour, and commuter rail systems may either be part of the national railway or operated
by local transit agencies.
Common forms of commuter rail employ either diesel electric locomotives, or electric
multiple unit trains. Some commuter train lines share a railway with freight trains.

Rapid transit

The SkyTrain in Vancouver is the longest rapid transit system in Canada.

A rapid transit railway system (also called a metro, underground, heavy rail, or subway)
operates in an urban area with high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from
other traffic. Heavy rail is a high-capacity form of rail transit, with 4 to 10 units forming
a train, and can be the most expensive form of transit to build. Modern heavy rail
systems are mostly driverless, which allows for higher frequencies and less maintenance
cost.
Systems are able to transport large numbers of people quickly over short distances with
little land use. Variations of rapid transit include people movers, small-scale light
metro and the commuter rail hybrid S-Bahn. More than 160 cities have rapid transit
systems, totalling more than 8,000 km (4,971 mi) of track and 7,000 stations.
Twenty-five cities have systems under construction.
People mover
People movers are a special term for grade-separated rail which uses vehicles that are
smaller and shorter in size. These systems are generally used only in a small area such as
a theme park or an airport.
Tram

A streetcar in Toronto, which operates the largest tramway in North America

Trams (also known as streetcars) are railborne vehicles that run in city streets or
dedicated tracks. They have higher capacity than buses, but must follow dedicated
infrastructure with rails and wires either above or below the track, limiting their flexibility.
In the United States, trams were commonly used prior to the 1930s, before being
superseded by the bus. In modern public transport systems, they have been
reintroduced in the form of the light rail.

Light rail
Light rail is a redevelopment (and use) of the tram, with dedicated right-of-way not
shared with other traffic, (often) step-free access and increased speed. Light rail lines
are, thus, essentially modernized interurbans. Unlike trams, light rail systems are longer
and have one to four cars per train.
Monorail

A monorail from Chiba, Japan

Somewhere between light and heavy rail in terms of carbon footprint, monorail systems
usually use overhead single tracks, either mounted directly on the track supports or put
in an overhead design with the train suspended.
Monorail systems are used throughout the world (especially in Europe and east Asia,
particularly Japan), but apart from public transit installations in Las Vegas and Seattle,
most North American monorails are either short shuttle services or privately owned
services (With 150,000 daily riders, the Disney monorail systems used at their parks
may be the most famous in the world).

Personal rapid transit

People mover vehicle of Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit

Personal rapid transit is an automated cab service that runs on rails or a guideway. This
is an uncommon mode of transportation (excluding elevators) due to the complexity of
automation. A fully implemented system might provide most of the convenience of
individual automobiles with the efficiency of public transit. The crucial innovation is that
the automated vehicles carry just a few passengers, turn off the guideway to pick up
passengers (permitting other PRT vehicles to continue at full speed), and drop them off
to the location of their choice (rather than at a stop). Conventional transit simulations
show that PRT might attract many auto users in problematic medium-density urban areas.
A number of experimental systems are in progress. One might compare personal rapid
transit to the more labor-intensive taxi or paratransit modes of transportation, or to the
(by now automated) elevators common in many publicly accessible areas.

Cable-propelled transit

Gulmarg Gondola in Gulmarg, India

Cable-propelled transit (CPT) is a transit technology that moves people in motor-less,
engine-less vehicles that are propelled by a steel cable. There are two sub-groups of
CPT – gondola lifts and cable cars (railway). Gondola lifts are supported and propelled
from above by cables, whereas cable cars are supported and propelled from below by
cables.
While historically associated with usage in ski resorts, gondola lifts are now finding
increased consumption and utilization in many urban areas – built specifically for the
purposes of mass transit. Many, if not all, of these systems are implemented and fully
integrated within existing public transportation networks. Examples include Metrocable
(Medellín), Metrocable (Caracas), Mi Teleférico in La Paz, Portland Aerial Tram, Roosevelt
Island Tramway in New York City, and the London Cable Car.

Ferry

Water bus (vaporetto) at bus stop in Venice, Italy

A ferry is a boat used to carry (or ferry) passengers, and sometimes their vehicles,
across a body of water. A foot-passenger ferry with many stops is sometimes called
a water bus. Ferries form a part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities
and islands, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than
bridges or tunnels, though at a lower speed. Ship connections of much larger distances
(such as over long distances in water bodies like the Mediterranean Sea) may also be
called ferry services.

Cycleway network

Cycle Superhighway CS6 is part of Central London's Cycle Network mass transit
infrastructure.
A report published by the UK National Infrastructure Commission in 2018 states that
"cycling is mass transit and must be treated as such." Cycling infrastructure is normally
provided without charge to users because it is cheaper to operate than mechanized
transit systems that use sophisticated equipment and do not use human power.
Electric bikes and scooters
Many cities around the world have introduced electric bikes and scooters to their public
transport infrastructure. For example, in the Netherlands many individuals use e-bikes to
replace their car commutes. In major American cities, start-up companies such as Uber
and Lyft have implemented e-scooters as a way for people to take short trips around
the city.
PRESENT AND FUTURE PROBLEMS, ISSUES AND ROLE OF MASS
TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN URBAN DESIGN
The Urban Transit Challenge

As cities continue to become more dispersed, the cost of building and operating public
transportation systems increases. For instance, as of 2021, about 205 urban
agglomerations had a subway system, the vast majority of them being in developed
economies. Furthermore, dispersed residential patterns characteristic of automobile-
dependent cities make public transportation systems less convenient for supporting
urban mobility. Additional investments in public transit often do not result in significant
additional ridership. Unplanned and uncoordinated land development has led to the rapid
expansion of the urban periphery. By selecting housing in outlying areas, residents
restrict their potential access to public transportation. Over-investment (when
investments do not appear to imply significant benefits) and under-investment (when
there is a substantial unmet demand) in public transit are both complex challenges.

Urban transit is often perceived as the most efficient transportation mode for urban
areas, notably large cities. However, surveys reveal a stagnation of public transit
systems, especially in North America, where ridership levels have barely changed in the
last 30 years. The economic relevance of public transit is being questioned. Most urban
transit developments had little impact on alleviating congestion despite mounting costs
and heavy subsidies. This paradox is partially explained by the spatial structure of
contemporary cities, which are oriented along with servicing individual mobility needs.
Thus, the automobile remains the preferred mode of urban transportation.

Besides, public transit is publicly owned, implying a politically motivated service that
provides limited economic returns. Even in transit-oriented cities, transit systems
depend massively on government subsidies. Little or no competition within the public
transit system is permitted as wages and fares are regulated, undermining any price
adjustments to ridership changes. Thus, public transit often serves the purpose of public
service as it provides accessibility and social equity, but with limited relationships with
economic activities. Among the most difficult challenges facing urban transit are:

• Decentralization. Public transit systems are not designed to service low-density

and scattered urban areas dominating the urban landscape. The greater the
decentralization of urban activities, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to
serve urban areas with public transit. Additionally, decentralization promotes long-
distance trips on transit systems causing higher operating costs and revenue
issues for flat-fare transit systems.
• Fixity. The infrastructures of several public transit systems, notably rail and
subway systems, are fixed, while cities are dynamic entities, even if the pace of
 change can take decades. This implies that travel patterns tend to change with a
transit system built for servicing a specific pattern that may eventually face spatial
obsolescence; the pattern it was designed to serve may no longer exist.
• Connectivity. Public transit systems are often independent of other modes and
terminals. It is consequently difficult to transfer passengers from one system to
the other. This leads to a paradox between the preference of riders to have
direct connections and the need to provide a cost-efficient service network that
involves transfers.
• Automobile competition. Given cheap and ubiquitous road transport systems,
public transit faced strong competition and lost ridership in relative terms and, in
some cases, in absolute terms. The higher the level of automobile dependency,
the more inappropriate the public transit level of service. The convenience of the
automobile outpaces the public service being offered.
• Construction and maintenance costs. Public transit systems, particularly heavy
rail, are capital-intensive to build, operate, and maintain. Cost varies depending
on local conditions such as density and regulations, but average construction
costs are around $300 million per km. However, there are exceptions where
cost overruns can be substantial because of capture by special interest groups
such as labor unions, construction companies, and consulting firms. When there is
inefficient regulatory oversight, these actors will converge to extract as much
rent as possible from public transit capital improvements. The world’s highest
subway construction costs are in New York. For instance, the Second Avenue
subway extension in Manhattan, completed in 2015, was done at the cost of
$1.7 billion per km, five to seven times the average in comparable cities such as
Paris or London. This project employed four times more labor, with construction
costs 50% higher.
• Fare structures. Historically, most public transit systems have abandoned a
distance-based fare structure for a simpler flat fare system. This had the
unintended consequence of discouraging short trips, for which most transit
systems are well suited for, and encouraging longer trips that tend to be costlier
per user than the fares they generate. Information systems offer the possibility
for transit systems to move back to a more equitable distance-based fare
structure, particularly with smartcards that enable charging according to the point
of entry and exit within the public transit system.
• Legacy costs. Most public transit systems employ unionized labor that has
consistently used strikes (or the threat of labor disruptions) and the acute
disruptions they create as leverage to negotiate favorable contracts, including
health and retirement benefits. Since public transit is subsidized, these costs
were not well reflected in the fare systems. In many transit systems, additional
subsidies went into compensation or covered past debt, not necessarily into
performance improvements or additional infrastructure. As most governments face
stringent budgetary constraints because of social welfare commitments, public
transit agencies are being forced to reassess their budgets through an unpopular
mix of higher fares, deferred maintenance, and the breaking of labor contracts.
 • Self-driving vehicles. Developments in information technologies underline that self-
driving vehicles could be deployed in large numbers. Such a development would
entail point-to-point services by on-demand vehicles and a much better utilization
level of such assets. This system could compete directly with transit systems due
to its convenience, comfort, and likely affordability.

1. Urban Transportation at the Crossroads

Cities are locations having a high level of accumulation and concentration of economic
activities. They are complex spatial structures supported by infrastructures, including
transport systems. The larger a city, the greater its complexity and the potential for
disruptions, particularly when this complexity is not effectively managed. Urban
productivity is highly dependent on the efficiency of its transport system to move labor,
consumers, and freight between multiple origins and destinations. Additionally, transport
terminals such as ports, airports, and railyards are located within urban areas, helping
anchor a city within a regional and global mobility system.

Still, transportation infrastructure and terminals are also contributing to a specific array
of challenges. Some challenges are ancient, like congestion (which plagued cities such
as Rome), while others are new, like urban freight distribution or environmental impacts.

a. Traffic congestion and parking difficulties

Congestion is one of the most prevalent transport challenges in large urban

agglomerations. Although congestion can occur in all cities, it is particularly prevalent in
those above a threshold of about 1 million inhabitants. These structures are large and
complex enough to create conditions that generate a systematic congestion level.
Further to size and complexity, congestion is particularly linked with motorization and the
diffusion of the automobile, which has increased the demand for transport
infrastructures. However, the supply of infrastructure has often not been able to keep up
with the pace of mobility growth. Since vehicles spend the majority of their time parked,
motorization has expanded both the demand for road infrastructure and parking space. In
turn, this created footprint problems, particularly in central areas where the footprint of
parked vehicles is significant and consumes scarce resources. By the 21st century,
drivers are three times more likely to be affected by congestion than in the latter part
of the 20th century.

Congestion and parking are also interrelated since street parking consumes transport
capacity, removing one or two lanes for circulation along urban roads. Further, looking
for a parking space (called “cruising”) creates additional delays and impairs local
circulation. In central areas of large cities, cruising may account for more than 10% of
the local circulation, as drivers can spend up to 20 minutes looking for a parking spot.
This practice is often judged more economically effective than using a paying off-street
parking facility. The time spent looking for a free (or low cost) parking space is
compensated by the incurred monetary savings. Parking also impairs deliveries as many
delivery vehicles will double-park at the closest possible spot to unload their cargo.

Identifying the true cause of congestion is a strategic issue for urban planning since
congestion is commonly the outcome of circumstances specific to a city, such as the
lack of parking or poorly synchronized traffic signals.

b. Longer commuting

On par with congestion, people are spending an increasing amount of

time commuting between their residences and workplaces. An important factor behind
this trend is related to residential affordability, as housing located further away from
central areas (where most of the employment remains) is more affordable. Therefore,
commuters are exchanging commuting time for housing affordability. However, long
commuting is linked with several social problems, such as isolation (less time spent with
family or friends), as well as poorer health (obesity). Time spent during commuting is at
the expense of other economic and social activities. However, information technologies
such as smartphones have allowed commuters to perform a variety of tasks while
traveling.

c. Public transport inadequacy

Many public transit systems, or segments of them, are either over or underused since
the demand for public transit is subject to periods of peaks and troughs. During peak
hours, crowdedness creates discomfort for users as the system copes with a temporary
surge in demand. This creates the challenge of the provision of an adequate level of
transit infrastructure and service levels. Planning for peak capacity leaves the system
highly under-used during off-peak hours, while planning for an average capacity will lead
to congestion during peak hours.

Low ridership makes many services financially unsustainable, particularly in suburban areas
where density is not high enough to justify such services. Despite significant subsidies
and cross-financing (e.g. tolls), almost every public transit system cannot generate
sufficient income to cover its operating and capital costs. While in the past, deficits
were deemed acceptable because of the essential service public transit was providing
for urban mobility, its financial burden is increasingly controversial.
d. Difficulties for non-motorized transport

These difficulties are either the outcome of intense traffic, where the mobility of
pedestrians, bicycles, and other non-motorized vehicles is impaired, but also because of
a blatant lack of consideration for pedestrians and bicycles in the physical design of
infrastructures and facilities. On the opposite side, the setting of bicycle paths takes
capacity away from roadways as well as parking space. A negative outcome would be to
allocate more space for non-motorized transport than the actual mobility demand, which
would exacerbate congestion.

e. Loss of public space

Most roads are publicly owned and free of access. Increased traffic has adverse
impacts on public activities, which once crowded the streets, such as markets, agoras,
parades and processions, games, and community interactions. These have gradually
disappeared to be replaced by automobiles. In many cases, these activities have shifted
to shopping malls, while in other cases, they have been abandoned altogether. Traffic
flows influence the life and interactions of residents and their usage of street space.
More traffic impedes social interactions and street activities. People tend to walk and
cycle less when traffic is high.

f. High infrastructure maintenance costs

Cities facing the aging of their transport systems have to assume growing maintenance
costs as well as pressures to upgrade to more modern infrastructure. In addition to the
involved costs, maintenance and repair activities create circulation disruptions. Delayed
maintenance is rather common since it conveys the benefit of keeping current costs low,
but at the expense of higher future costs and, on some occasions, the risk of
infrastructure failure. The more extensive the road and highway network, the higher the
maintenance cost and its financial burden. The same applies to public transit
infrastructure that requires a system-wide maintenance strategy.

g. Environmental impacts and energy consumption

Pollution, including noise generated by circulation, has become an impediment to the

quality of life and even the health of urban populations. Further, energy consumption by
urban transportation has dramatically increased, and so has the dependency on
petroleum. These considerations are increasingly linked with peak mobility expectations
where high energy prices incite a shift towards more efficient and sustainable forms of
urban transportation, namely public transit. There are pressures to decarbonize urban
transport systems, particularly with the diffusion of alternative energy sources such as
electric vehicles.

h. Accidents and safety

The growth in the intensity of circulation in urban areas is linked to a growing number
of accidents and fatalities, especially in developing economies. Accidents account for a
significant share of recurring delays from congestion. As traffic increases, people feel
less safe using the streets. The diffusion of information technologies leads to
paradoxical outcomes. While users have access to reliable location and navigation
information, portable devices create distractions linked with a rise in accidents for
drivers and pedestrians alike.

i. Land footprint

The footprint of transportation is significant, particularly for the automobile. Between 30

and 60% of a metropolitan area may be devoted to transportation, an outcome of the
over-reliance on infrastructures supporting road transportation. Yet, this footprint also
underlines the strategic importance of transportation in the economic and social welfare
of cities, as mobility is a sign of efficiency and prosperity.

j. Freight distribution

Globalization and increases in living standards have resulted in growing quantities of

freight moving within cities. As freight traffic commonly shares infrastructures supporting
the circulation of passengers, the mobility of freight in urban areas has
become increasingly controversial. The growth of e-commerce and home deliveries has
created additional pressures on the urban mobility of freight. City logistics strategies
can be established to mitigate the variety of challenges faced by urban freight
distribution, namely delivery hours and parking.

Many dimensions of the urban transport challenge are linked to the dominance of the
automobile.

2. Automobile Dependency

Automobile use is related to a variety of advantages, such as on-demand mobility,

comfort, status, speed, and convenience. These advantages jointly illustrate
why automobile ownership continues to grow worldwide, especially in urban areas and
developing economies. When given a choice and the opportunity, most individuals will
prefer using an automobile. Several factors influence the growth of the total vehicle
fleet, such as sustained economic growth (increase in income and quality of life), complex
individual urban movement patterns (many households have more than one automobile),
more leisure time, and suburbanization (areas where mobility options are limited).
Therefore, rising automobile mobility can be perceived as a positive consequence of
economic development. The automotive sector, particularly car manufacturing, is a factor
of economic growth, multiplying effects, and job creation, which can be actively
promoted.

The growth in the total number of vehicles also gives rise to congestion at peak traffic
hours on major thoroughfares, in business districts, and often throughout the
metropolitan area. Cities are important generators and attractors of mobility, which is
associated with a set of geographical paradoxes that are self-reinforcing. For instance,
economic specialization leads to additional transport demands, while agglomeration
leads to congestion. Over time, a state of automobile dependency has emerged, which
results in a declining role of other modes, thereby limiting alternatives to urban mobility
through path dependency. Future development options are locked-in because of past
choices, and a city can become locked-into planning decisions that reinforce the use of
the automobile. In addition to the factors contributing to the growth of driving, two
major factors contributing to automobile dependency are:

• Underpricing and consumer choices. Most roads and highways are subsidized as
they are considered a public good. Urban facilities cannot be built without
providing road infrastructures. Consequently, drivers do not bear the full cost of
automobile use, such as parking. Like the “Tragedy of the Commons”, when a
resource is free of access (road), it tends to be overused and abused
(congestion). This is also reflected in consumer choice, where automobile
ownership is a symbol of status, freedom, and prestige, especially in developing
economies. Single home ownership also reinforces automobile dependency if this
ownership is favored through various policies and subsidies such as tax rebates.
• Planning and investment practices. Planning and the ensuing allocation of public
funds aim towards improving road and parking facilities in an ongoing attempt to
avoid congestion. Other transportation alternatives tend to be disregarded. In
many cases, zoning regulations impose minimum standards of road and parking
services, such as the number of parking spaces per square meter of built surface,
and de facto impose a regulated automobile dependency.

There are several levels of automobile dependency, ranging from low to acute, with their
corresponding land use patterns and alternatives to mobility. Among the most relevant
automobile dependency indicators is the level of vehicle ownership, per capita motor
vehicle mileage, and the proportion of total commuting trips made using an automobile.
A situation of high automobile dependency is reached when more than three-quarters of
commuting trips are done using the automobile. For the United States, this proportion
has remained around 88% over recent decades.

Automobile dependency is also served by a cultural and commercial system promoting

the automobile as a symbol of status and personal freedom, namely through intense
advertising and enticements to purchase new vehicles. Not surprisingly, many developing
economies perceive motorization as a condition, even an indicator, of development. Even
if the term automobile dependency is often negatively perceived and favored by market
distortions such as the provision of roads, its outcome reflects the choice of individuals
who see the automobile more as an advantage than an inconvenience. This can lead to
a paradoxical situation where planners try to counterbalance the preference for
automobile ownership supported by the bulk of the population.

The perception of automobile dependency changed over time. The second half of the
20th century saw the adaptation of many cities to support automobile circulation.
Motorized transportation was seen as a symbol of modernity and development.
Highways and parking lots were constructed, and streets were enlarged, often
disrupting the existing urban environment by creating motorized cities. Automobile
ownership levels increased rapidly. However, from the 1980s, motorization started to
be seen more negatively, and cities implemented policies to limit automobile circulation,
at least in specific areas, by a set of strategies including:

• Dissuasion. Although automobile circulation is permitted, it is impeded by

regulations and physical planning. For instance, parking space can be severely
limited or subject to pricing and speed bumps placed to force speed reduction.
• Prohibition of downtown circulation. During most of the day, the downtown area is
closed to automobile circulation, but deliveries are permitted during the night.
Such strategies are often undertaken to protect the character and the physical
infrastructures of a historical city. They do, however, like most policies, have
unintended consequences. If mobility is restrained in specific locations or during
certain periods, people will go elsewhere where they can drive (longer trips) or
defer their mobility for another time (more trips).
• Tolls. Imposing tolls for parking and entry (congestion pricing) in some parts of
the city has been a strategy being considered seriously as it confers the
potential advantage of congestion mitigation and revenue generation. However,
most evidence underlines that drivers are willing to bear additional toll costs for
the convenience of using a car, especially for commuting, since it is linked with
their primary source of income. Thus, tolls are not necessarily a tool for
dissuasion but for revenue generation.

Tentative solutions have been put forth, such as transport planning

measures (synchronized traffic lights, regulated parking), limited vehicle traffic in
selected areas, the promotion of bicycle paths, and public transit. In Mexico City,
vehicle use is allowed on specific weekdays according to license plate numbers, implying
that a vehicle will be prevented from circulating at least one weekday. Affluent families
have solved this issue by purchasing a second vehicle, thus worsening the existing
situation. Singapore is the only country in the world that has successfully controlled the
amount and growth rate of its vehicle fleet by imposing a heavy tax burden and
purchasing permits on automobile owners. Since Singapore is of small size and has an
extensive public transit system, this restriction did not impair mobility. However, such a
command-based approach is unlikely to be possible in other contexts.

There is a growing body of evidence underlining that a peak level of car mobility is
unfolding, at least in developed economies. Higher energy prices, congestion, fewer
economic prospects, high ownership costs, and the general aging of the population are
all countervailing forces to car dependency. For instance, in 2006, the number of
vehicle-miles traveled in the United States peaked and remained stable until growth
resumed between 2016 and early 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a sharp
drop, and by 2021, car travel resumed to pre-pandemic levels. There are many
alternatives to automobile dependency, such as intermodality (combining the advantages
of individual and collective transport), carpooling, ridesharing, or micro-mobility (walking
and cycling). These alternatives can only be partially implemented as the automobile
remains the prime choice for providing urban mobility. A significant potential change
remains the development of mobile car-sharing applications enabling better utilization of
vehicle assets. Although this would not reduce automobile dependency, it can offer
enough flexibility for some users not to require automobile ownership.

3. Congestion
Congestion occurs when transport demand exceeds transport supply at a specific point
in time and in a specific section of the transport system. Under such circumstances,
each vehicle impairs the mobility of others.

Congestion can be perceived as an unavoidable consequence of the usage of scarce

transport resources, particularly if they are not priced. The last decades have seen the
extension of roads in urban areas, most of them free of access. Those infrastructures
were designed for speed and high capacity, but the growth of urban circulation occurred
at a rate higher than often expected. Road infrastructures that were designed to be
more than adequate a couple of decades earlier were then found to run out of capacity
faster than expected. Investments came from diverse levels of government intending to
provide accessibility to cities and regions. There were strong incentives for the
expansion of road transportation by providing high levels of transport supply. This has
created a vicious circle of congestion, which supports the construction of additional
road capacity and automobile dependency. Urban congestion mainly concerns two
domains of circulation, often sharing the same infrastructures:
 • Passengers. In many world regions, incomes have significantly increased; one
automobile per household or more is becoming common. Access to an automobile
conveys flexibility in terms of the choice of origin, destination, and travel time.
The automobile is favored for most trips, including commuting. The majority of
automobile-related congestion is the outcome of time preferences in the usage of
vehicles (during commuting hours) as well as a substantial amount of space
required to park vehicles. About 95% of the time, an automobile is idle, and each
new automobile requires an additional footprint.
• Freight. Several industries have shifted their transport needs to trucking, thereby
increasing the usage of road infrastructure. Since cities are the leading
destinations for freight flows (either for consumption or transfer to other
locations), trucking adds to urban congestion. The “last mile” problem remains
particularly prevalent for freight distribution in urban areas. Congestion is
commonly linked with a drop in the frequency of deliveries tying additional
capacity to ensure a similar level of service. The growth of home deliveries due to
e-commerce increased congestion, particularly in high-density areas, in part
because of more frequent parking.

Still, congestion in urban areas is dominantly caused by commuting patterns and little by
truck movements. On average, infrastructure provision could not keep up with the
growth in the number of vehicles, even more with the total number of vehicles-km. During
infrastructure improvement and construction, capacity impairment (fewer available lanes,
closed sections, etc.) favors congestion. Significant travel delays occur when the
capacity limit is reached or exceeded, which is the case in almost all metropolitan areas.
In the largest cities such as London, road traffic is slower than it was 100 years ago.
Marginal delays are thus increasing, and driving speed becomes problematic as the level
of population density increases. Once a population threshold of about 1 million is
reached, cities start to experience recurring congestion problems. This observation
must be nuanced by numerous factors related to the urban setting, modal preferences
(share of public transit), and the quality of existing urban transport infrastructures.

Congestion is a recurrent characteristic in large cities and became more acute in the
1990s and 2000s and then leveled off in many cases. For instance, average car travel
speeds have substantially declined in China. Many cities experience an average driving
speed of less than 20 km/hr with car density exceeding 200 cars per km of road, a
figure comparable to many developed economies. Another important consideration
concerns parking, which consumes large amounts of space and provides a limited
economic benefit if not monetized. In automobile-dependent cities, this can be very
constraining as each facility has to provide an amount of parking space proportional to
their activity level. Parking has become a land use that significantly inflates the demand
for urban land.
Urban mobility also reveals congestion patterns. Daily trips can be
either mandatory (workplace-home) or voluntary (shopping, leisure, visits). The former is
often performed within fixed schedules, while the latter complies with variable and
discretionary schedules. Correspondingly, congestion comes in two major forms:

• Recurrent congestion. The consequence of factors that cause regular demand

surges in the transportation system, such as commuting, shopping, or weekend
trips. These patterns are predictable. However, even recurrent congestion can
have unforeseen impacts in terms of its duration and severity. Mandatory trips
are mainly responsible for the peaks in circulation flows, implying that about half
the congestion in urban areas is recurring at specific times of the day and on
specific segments of the transport system.
• Non-recurrent congestion. The other half of congestion is caused by random
events such as accidents and unusual weather conditions (rain, snowstorms, etc.),
which can be represented as a risk factor that can be expected to take place.
Non-recurrent congestion is linked to the presence and effectiveness of incident
response strategies. As far as accidents are concerned, their randomness is
influenced by the level of traffic, as the higher the traffic on specific road
segments, the higher the probability of accidents.

Behavioral and response time effects are also important in a system running close to
capacity. For instance, braking suddenly while driving may trigger what can be known as
a backward traveling wave. It implies that as vehicles are forced to stop, the bottleneck
moves up the location it initially took place, often leaving drivers puzzled about its cause.
The spatial convergence of traffic causes a surcharge on transport infrastructures up to
the point where congestion can lead to the total immobilization of traffic. Not only does
the use of the automobile have an impact on traffic circulation and congestion, but it also
leads to a decline in public transit efficiency when both are sharing the same road
infrastructures.

4. Mitigating Urban Congestion

In some areas, the automobile is the only mode for which adequate transportation
infrastructures are provided. This implies less capacity for using alternative modes such
as transit, walking, and cycling. At some levels of density, no public infrastructure
investment can be justified in terms of economic returns. Longer commuting trips in
terms of average travel time, the result of fragmented land uses, and congestion levels
are significant trends. A convergence of traffic is taking place at major highways serving
low-density areas with high levels of automobile ownership and low levels of automobile
occupancy. The result is energy (fuel) wasted during congestion (additional time) and
supplementary commuting distances. In automobile-dependent cities, a few measures
can help alleviate congestion to some extent:
• Ramp metering. Controlling access to a congested highway by letting
automobiles in one at a time instead of in random groups. The outcome is a lower
disruption in highway traffic flows through better merging from the ramp.
• Traffic signal synchronization. Tuning the traffic signals to the time and direction
of traffic flows. This is particularly effective if the signals can be adjusted hourly
to reflect changes in circulation patterns. Trucks can be allowed to pass traffic
lights through delayed signals, which reduces the risk of accidents through
sudden collisions with a car breaking at a yellow light. Therefore, trucks are less
likely to be the first vehicle at a red light, which increases capacity because
trucks have lower acceleration.
• Incident management. Making sure that vehicles involved in accidents or
mechanical failures are removed as quickly as possible from the road. Since
accidents account for 20 to 30% of all the causes of congestion, this strategy
is particularly important.
• Vehicle restrictions. This can take place over access and ownership. Vehicle
access to specific parts of a city, such as a central business district, can be
restricted permanently, or at certain points in time. This incites users to rely on
another mode to reach these destinations. Several cities and countries (e.g.
Singapore) have quotas in the number of license plates that can be issued or
require high licensing fees. To purchase a vehicle, an individual thus must first
secure a license through an auction. Such strategies, however, go against market
principles.
• Sharing vehicles. Concerns two issues. The first is providing ridership to people
(often co-workers) having a similar origin, destination, and commuting time. Two
or more vehicle trips can thus be combined into one, which is commonly referred
to as carpooling. The second involves a pool of vehicles (mostly cars, but
also bicycles) that can be leased or shared for a short duration when mobility is
required. Adequate measures must be taken so that supply and demand are
effectively matched with information technologies providing effective support.
• HOV lanes. High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes ensure that vehicles with two or
more passengers (buses, taxis, vans, carpool, etc.) have exclusive access to a
less congested lane, particularly during peak hours.
• Congestion pricing. A variety of measures are aimed at imposing charges on
specific segments or regions of the transport system, mainly as a toll. The
charges can also vary during the day to reflect congestion levels so that drivers
are incited to consider other time periods or other modes. This can involve lanes
being restricted to vehicles willing to pay a toll.
• Parking management. Removing parking or free parking spaces can be an effective
dissuasion tool since it reduces cruising and enables those willing to pay to
access an area (e.g. for a short shopping stop). Parking spaces should be
treated as scarce assets subject to a price structure reflecting the willingness to
pay. Further, planning regulations provide an indirect subsidy to parking by
enforcing minimum parking space requirements based on the facility type and the
density of the land use.
 • Public transit. Offering alternatives to driving can significantly improve efficiency,
notably if it circulates on its own infrastructure (subway, light rail, buses on
reserved lanes, etc.) and is well integrated within urban development plans.
Financial incentives can be offered, such as discounted monthly passes for
commuters. However, public transit has its own set of issues (see the next
section about urban transit challenges).
• Micro-mobility (Non-motorized transportation). Since most urban trips are over
short distances, non-motorized modes, particularly walking, cycling, and e-bikes,
have an important role in supporting urban mobility, also known as micro-mobility.
The provision of adequate infrastructure, such as sidewalks, is often a low priority
as non-motorized transportation is often perceived as not modern despite the
important role it needs to assume in urban areas.

All these measures only partially address the issue of congestion, as they alleviate but
do not solve the problem. Fundamentally, congestion remains a sign of economic
success, but a failure to reconcile rising mobility demands and acute supply constraints.

References
RHIHUB. (2002). Types of Transit Systems. Retrieved from RURAL HEALTH INFORMATION CLUB:
https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/transportation/1/types-of-transit-systems

Rodrigue, D. J.-P. (1998). Urban Transport Challenges. Retrieved from The Geography of Transport
Systems: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/

Schofer, J. L. (2015, JANUARY). mass transit. Retrieved from BRITANNICA:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/mass-transit/The-automobile-and-mass-transportation

Stojanovski, T. (2019, APRIL 26). Urban design and public transportation – public spaces, visual proximity
and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Retrieved from Journal of Urban Design:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574809.2019.1592665

Vuchic, V. R. (n.d.). URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS. Retrieved from TRANSPORTATION

ENGINEERING AND PLANNING: http://eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C05/E6-40-02-02.pdf

WIKIPEDIA. (n.d.). Public transport. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport