Chapter 1 The Context of Urban Transport

1. Transportation and Transport Mode

1.1. Concept of Urban Transportation

Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. The urban transport system provides access and mobility for people and goods, linking origins and destinations both internal and external to the urban area. It has many elements, such as public transport, non-motorized transport (pedestrians, cyclists), freight and business traffic, and motorized private traffic.

These transport services in combination cover a range of important social and economic activities. The activities include leisure trips, business journeys, commuting, shopping, trips to schools, and freight transportation. The targeted objectives for urban transport are to fulfil the demand for accessibility with an efficient and quality service, while at the same time promoting sustainable patterns and levels of traffic that take account of economic, social, environmental and safety concerns.

Modes of urban transport include urban rail, road and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operation. Transport is important since it enables trade between peoples, which is in turn essential for the development of civilizations. Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. Urban transportation infrastructure include road and highway networks, mass transit systems, railways, bicycle paths and pedestrian walkways.

Urban transport infrastructure consists of the fixed installations necessary for transport, and may be roads, railways, terminals (railway stations, bus stations, trucking terminals), bicycle paths, and pedestrian walkways. Terminals can be used both for the interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance.

A vehicle is a device that is designed and used to transport people or cargo. Vehicles travelling on these networks are manufactured, and may include automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, and trucks. Operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose including financing, legalities and policies. In the urban transport industry, operations and ownership of infrastructure can be either public or private, depending the country and mode.

Passenger transport may be public, where operators provide scheduled services, or private. Freight transport has become focused on containerization, although bulk transport is used for large volumes of durable items. Transport plays an important part in economic growth and globalization, but most types cause air pollution and use large amounts of land. While it is heavily subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow, and restrain urban sprawl.

1.2. Urban Transport Mode

A mode of transport is a solution that makes use of a particular type of vehicle, infrastructure and operation. The transport of a person or of cargo may involve one mode, or several modes, with the latter case being called intermodal or multimodal transport. Each mode has its advantages and disadvantages, and will be chosen on the basis of cost, capability, route, and speed.

Major urban transport modes consist of road transport and rail transport. A road is an identifiable route, way, or path between two or more places. Roads are typically smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel. In urban areas, roads may pass through a city or village and be named as streets, serving a dual function as urban space easement and route. The most common road vehicle is the automobile; a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. Other users of roads include buses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians.

Automobiles offer high flexibility and with low capacity, but are high energy and area users, and are the main source of noise and air pollution in cities; buses allow for more efficient travel at the cost of reduced flexibility. Road transport by truck is often the initial and final stage of freight transport.

Rail transport is where a train runs along a set of two parallel steel rails, known as a railway or railroad. Alternative methods include monorail and maglev. A train consists of one or more connected vehicles that run on the rails. Some or all the cars can be powered, known as a multiple unit. Railed vehicles move with much less friction than rubber tires on paved roads, making trains more energy efficient, though not as efficient as ships. Intercity trains are long-haul services connecting cities; modern high-speed rail is capable of speeds up to 350 km/h (220 mph), but this requires specially built track.

Regional and commuter trains feed cities from suburbs and surrounding areas, while intra-urban transport is performed by high-capacity tramways and rapid transits, often making up the backbone of a city's public transport. Freight trains traditionally used box cars, requiring manual loading and unloading of the cargo.

2. Function of Urban Transport

2.1. Passenger Transport

Passenger transport, or travel, is divided into public and private transport. Public is scheduled services on fixed routes, while private is vehicles that provide ad hoc services at the riders' desire. The latter offers better flexibility, but has lower capacity, and a higher environmental impact. Travel may be as part of daily commuting, for business, leisure or migration.

Short-haul transport is dominated by the automobile and mass transit. The latter consists of buses in rural areas and small cities, supplemented with commuter rail, trams and rapid transit in larger cities. Long-haul transport involves the use of the automobile, trains, coaches and aircraft, the last of which have become predominantly used for the longest, including intercontinental, travel. Intermodal passenger transport is where a journey is performed through the use of several modes of transport; since all human transport normally starts and ends with walking, all passenger transport can be considered intermodal. Public transport may also involve the intermediate change of vehicle, within or across modes, at a transport hub, such as a bus or railway station. Taxis and buses can be found on opposite ends of the Public Transport spectrum. Whereas buses remain the cheaper mode of transport but are not necessarily flexible, taxis are very flexible but more expensive.

2.2. Freight Transport

Freight transport or shipping is a key in the value chain in manufacturing. With increased specialization and globalization, production is being located further away from consumption, rapidly increasing the demand for transport. While all modes of transport are used for cargo transport, there is high differentiation between the nature of the cargo transport, in which mode is chosen.

Logistics refers to the entire process of transferring products from producer to consumer, including storage, transport, transshipment, warehousing, material-handling and packaging, with associated exchange of information. In deals with the handling of payment and responsibility of risk during transport. Traditionally, all cargo had to be manually loaded and unloaded into the haul of any ship or car; containerization allows for automated handling and transfer between modes, and standardized sizes allow for gains in economy of scale in vehicle operation. This has been one of the key driving factors in international trade and globalization since the 1950s.

Bulk transport is common with cargo that can be handled roughly without deterioration; typical examples are ore, coal, cereals and petroleum. Because of the uniformity of the product, mechanical handling can allow enormous quantities to be handled quickly and efficiently. The low value of the cargo combined with high volume also means that economies of scale become essential in transport, and gigantic ships and whole trains are commonly used to transport bulk.

Air freight has become more common for products of high value; while less than one percent of world transport by volume is by airline, it amounts to forty % of the value. Time has become especially important in regards to principles such as postponement and just-in-time within the value chain, resulting in a high willingness to pay for quick delivery of key components or items of high value-to-weight ratio.

3. Impact of Urban Transport

3.1. Economic

Transport is a key component of growth and globalization, such as in Gwangju or Seoul, Republic of Korea. Transport is a key necessity for specialization - allowing production and consumption of products to occur at different locations. Transport has, throughout history, spurred to expansion; better transport allows more trade and a greater spread of people. Economic growth has always been dependent on increasing the capacity and rationality of transport. But the infrastructure and operation of transport has a great impact on the land and is the largest drainer of energy, making transport sustainability a major issue.

Modern society dictates a physical distinction between home and work, forcing people to transport themselves to places of work or study, as well as to temporarily relocate for other daily activities. Passenger transport is also the essence of tourism, a major part of recreational transport. Commerce requires the transport of people to conduct business, either to allow face-to-face communication for important decisions or to move specialists from their regular place of work to sites where they are needed.

3.2. Planning

Transport planning allows for high utilization and less impact regarding new infrastructure. Using models of transport forecasting, planners are able to predict future transport patterns. On the operative level, logistics allows owners of cargo to plan transport as part of the supply chain. Transport as a field is studied through transport economics, the backbone for the creation of regulation policy by authorities. Transport engineering and a sub-discipline of civil engineering must take into account trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice and route assignment, while the operative level is handled through traffic engineering.

The engineering of roundabout in the United Kingdom attempts to make traffic flow free-moving. Because of the negative impacts made, transport often becomes the subject of controversy, related to choice of mode, as well as increased capacity. Automotive transport can be seen as a tragedy of the commons, where the flexibility and comfort for the individual deteriorate the natural and urban environment for all. Density of development depends on mode of transport, with public transport allowing for better spacial utilization. Good land use keeps common activities close to peoples homes and places higher-density development closer to transport routes and hubs; minimizing the need for transport.

There are economies of agglomeration. Beyond transportation some land uses are more efficient when clustered. Transportation facilities consume land, and in cities, pavement (devoted to streets and parking) can easily exceed 20 % of the total land use. An efficient transport system can reduce land waste.

Too much infrastructure and too much smoothing for maximum vehicle throughput means that in many cities, there is too much traffic and many-if not all-of the negative impacts that come with it. It is only in recent years that traditional practices have started to be questioned in many places, and as a result of new types of analysis which bring in a much broader range of skills than those traditionally relied on-spanning such areas as environmental impact analysis and public health, sociologists as well as economists, are increasingly questioning the viability of the old mobility solutions. European cities are leading this transition.

3.3. Environment

Traffic congestion persists in Sao Paulo, Brazil despite the no-drive days based on license numbers. Transport is a major use of energy, and burns most of the world's petroleum. This creates air pollution, including nitrous oxides and particulate, and is a significant contributor to global warming through emission of carbon dioxide, for which transport is the fastest-growing emission sector.

By sub-sector, road transport is the largest contributor to global warming. Environmental regulations in developed countries have reduced the emissions of individual vehicles; however, this has been offset by an increase in the number of vehicles, and more use of each vehicle. Some pathways to the considerable reduction of carbon emissions of road vehicles have been studied. Energy use and emissions vary largely between modes, causing environmentalists to call for a transition from air and road to rail and human-powered transport, and increased transport electrification and energy efficiency.

Other environmental impacts of transport systems include traffic congestion and automobile-oriented urban sprawl, which can consume natural habitat and agricultural lands. By reducing transportation emissions globally, it is predicted that there will be significant positive effects on the Earth's air quality, acid rain, smog and climate change.

4. Urban Transport Problems

4.1. Challenges Facing Urban Transportation

Cities are locations which have a high level of accumulation and concentration of economic activities and are complex spatial structures that are supported by transport systems.

The most important transport problems are often related to urban areas and take place when transport systems, for a variety of reasons, cannot satisfy the numerous requirements of urban mobility. Urban productivity is highly dependent on the efficiency of its transport system to move labor, consumers and freight between multiple origins and destinations. Additionally, important transport terminals such as ports, airports, and railyards are located within urban areas, contributing to a specific array of problems. Some problems are ancient, like congestion, while others are new like urban freight distribution or environmental impacts. Among the most notable urban transport problems are:

Traffic Congestion and Parking Difficulties

Congestion is one of the most prevalent transport problems in large urban agglomerations, usually above a threshold of about 1 million inhabitants. It is particularly linked with motorization and the diffusion of the automobile, which has increased the demand for transport infrastructures. However, the supply of infrastructures has often not been able to keep up with the growth of mobility. Since vehicles spend the majority of the time parked, motorization has expanded the demand for parking space, which has created space consumption problems, particularly in central areas; the spatial imprint of parked vehicles is significant.

Longer Commuting

On par with congestion, people are spending an increasing amount of time commuting between their residence and workplace. 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 trading time for housing affordability. However, long commuting is linked with several social problems, such as isolation, as well as poorer health (obesity).

대도시 교통은 시민생활의 기반이며 도시성장의 중요한 토대가 된다. 도시화 및 자동차화 시대에 승용차는 시민의 일상활동을 유지하는 기본적인 교통수단이다. 대도시의 교통수요는 도시경제의 성장, 소득의 증대 및 사회경제활동의 확대로 크게 증가했다. 오늘날 개인통행량의 증가와 대중교통서비스의 악화로 교통혼잡, 교통사고, 주차난, 대중교통 승차난, 자전거 교통문제, 교통공해 등 대도시의 교통문제는 더욱 악화되고 있다. 대도시 교통문제는 시민의 일상생활을 방해하며 도시경제의 성장을 저해하므로 시정부가 신속히 해결해야 할 심각한 사회경제적인 과제이다. <br/><br/>상기한 배경 하에, 본서는 광주시를 사례로 대도시 교통문제와 교통정책을 종합적ㆍ체계적으로 다루고 있다. 주요내용은 제1장 도시교통의 이해와 내용, 광주시 도시개발과 교통문제, 제3장 버스교통문제와 정책, 제4장 도시철도문제와 정책, 제5장 교통수요관리정책, 제6장 도시주차문제와 정책, 제7장 교통사고와 교통안전정책, 제8장 자전거 교통문제와 정책, 제9장 지속교통문제와 정책, 제10장 녹도계획과 정책, 제11장 고속철도와 도시교통정책 등으로 구성되어 있다. <br/><br/>본서는 대도시 교통전반에 대한 이론과 실제를 다루어서 학부 과정의 교과서, 대학원과정의 학술도서로 활용할 수 있다. 또한 연구자 및 행정가에게 대도시 교통문제 해결에 대한 전문지식을 제공하고, 시민에게도 교통문제를 개선하기 위한 종합적인 정책방향을 제시하고 있다. 외국학자 및 행정가에게도 한국의 대도시 교통문제와 정책에 대한 전문적인 학술 및 연구정보를 제시하고 있다.<br/>