Transportation Systems

Issues & Challenges

Dr. TALEB M. AL-ROUSAN
Introduction
The transportation system exist to meet
perceived social and economic needs.
As changes occur to these needs and as the
transportation system evolves, situations
arise is which transportation is regarded as
a PROBLEM (i.e. being inadequate to
serve the public interest or possibly
threatening it).
These problem areas serve as challenges to
the transportation engineering profession,
posing both the threat of diminished public
support and the opportunity to contribute to
the solution of perceived social problems.
Challenges
1. Managing Traffic Congestion.
2. Improving Traffic Safety.
3. Providing Equal Access.
4. Protecting the Environmental.
5. Incorporating New Technology.
6. Securing financial Resources.
7. Developing Adequate Institutional
Arrangements

Traffic Congestion
Traffic congestion exist wherever demand
exceeds the capacity of the transportation
system.
Mostly in Urban highway system (on major
freeways and at intersection on arterial
streets.
Congested airspace at commercial airports, or
some times congestion due to inadequate
terminal facilities.
Congestion of facilities is rare for other
modes.
Overcrowding in individual vehicles is a
common problem for mass transit systems.
Managing Traffic Congestion/
Highways
Build more capacity (this approach is limited due to
shortage of funds, lack of space, and environmental
impacts).
Using the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS):
Automatic control of individual vehicles by reducing time
gaps between vehicles in the traffic stream (i.e. increase
capacity).
Improvement of traditional form of traffic controls
(Timing and coordination of urban arterial signal system).
Better urban land use planning.
Application of various economic incentives such as
congestion pricing (i.e. prices vary with the level of
congestion).
Preferential parking for carpool.
Special HOV facilities.
Managing Traffic Congestion/
Air Transportation
Airspace congestion can be solved by
increasing airport capacity or relocating it
(might be faced by lack of funds because of
high cost or by political and environmental
objections).
Controlling accessing to the congested
airports.
Holding flights on the ground when the
destination airport is congested.
Restructuring of the air traffic network (new
hubs (airports with high concentration of
transfer trips) are constructed by individual
airlines).
Improving Traffic Safety
Traffic accidents are of concern for all modes of
transportation, but are more visible in highways and
commercial air.
Improvements of safety for all modes have taken place
by observing the rate of accidents as a measure.
Rate of accidents decrease due to improvements
highway design and maintenance, improved vehicle
design, driver education and law enforcement activities.
Fatality rate for commercial aviation are very low
compared to those for motor vehicles. But it varies
from year to year since a single accident can make a
big difference.
Frequent concerns about rail traffic safety especially
where transportation of hazardous materials is
involved.
Improving Traffic Safety Cont.
Organizational responsibilities
USDOT include the following agencies involved is
transportation safety issues : Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA), Federal Aviation Agency (FAA),
Federal Railway Administration (FRA), National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
NHTSA: carry out programs that focus on improvement
of safety of vehicles, traffic safety, safety research and
development, and collection of accident data.
NTSB: investigate selected accidents involving all
transportation modes, identify safety problems, ..etc.
Legal concerns: increased legal liability for safety
problems.
Improving Traffic Safety Cont.
Challenges:
Public expectation of improving safety.
Increased tendency of accidents as
congestion increase.
Increased public impatience with
measures that may or may not improve
safety but are seen as intruding on
personal freedom.
Providing Equal Access
Continuing challenge to provide adequate access to
the transportation system for all sorts of people.
Groups of people underserved:
1. The poor (they are captive riders.used to count on
mass transit but their numbers are declining because
of increasing transit fares and increasing automobile
ownership (old and unreliable, and air pollutant
cars).
2. The elderly
3. The physical handicapped.
Many of elderly and handicapped are unable to
operate automobile and some barriers exist to use
public transport by those whose physical ability is
limited.
Providing Equal Access Cont.
By law and guideline of ADAAG (The Americans with
Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines) all public
transportation systems must be fully accessible to
both wheelchair users and pedestrians.
This require installation of wheelchair lifts on public
transit vehicles, provision of curb cuts and wheelchair
ramps at intersections of streets with sidewalks, and
provision of wheelchair access by means of ramps or
elevators at facilities such as airports and rail transit
stations.
Challenges: design and financing of accessibility
features such as wheelchair ramps, financial
challenge to provide wheelchair lifts on vehicles.
Protecting The Environment
Environmental impacts and impact of
economic activities (land development) are
the most important challenges to the
transportation system.
Current approaches to deal with it:
Broad national policies.
Laws and Regulations.
Economic incentives and disincentives.
Specific laws aimed at particular impacts.
Planning and documentation of environmental
impacts of specific transportation-related
actions.

Environmental Impacts
Large scale impacts due to the system as a whole
(system-level impact .most important):
Air quality.
Energy consumption.
Land use.
Small-scale impacts due to specific transportation
facilities and activities (Site-specific impacts):
Displacement of residence and businesses due to
construction of transportation facilities.
Noise.
Impacts on wildlife.
Impacts on water quality.
Visual impacts.
Temporary impacts during construction (noise, dust,
reduced water quality due to erosion of side slopes, etc.).
Environmental Impacts Cont.
Impacts of constructing new transportation facilities in
environmentally sensitive areas:
Areas that are habitats for threatened or endangered species.
flood plains.
Wetlands.
Coastal zones.
Prime agricultural lands.
Historical or archeological sites.
Wild or scenic rivers.
New land development is often seen as having an
adverse impact on the transportation system by
increasing the highway congestion.
Congestion is seen as negative impact (inconvenience to
existing users, energy consumption, and air quality).
Environment Protection Measures
Site-specific impacts:
Specific laws and regulations.
Documenting environmental impacts by
preparing Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for any environmentally
significant action taken by the
government.
System-level impacts:
Broad national-level laws and regulations
New Technology
In the past, the introduction of new technology has often
had a revolutionary impact on transportation systems.
Examples:
Steamship and railroad early 19
th
century.
Automobilelate 19
th
century.
Airplane early 20
th
century.
In these cases new types of physical facilities, control
systems, and institutional systems all had to be devised to
accommodate the new type of vehicles.
In addition to the revolution of the vehicular technology,
innovations in system concepts (example: containerized
freight shipping) has also led to changes in the operation of
the system.
Challenge: Transportation technology continues to evolve,
so that adjustment of the transportation system to new
technology is needed.
New Technology Cont.
In recent years the innovations in the vehicle technology is
quite.
Last major change to achieve wide spread implementation
was the introduction of commercial jet aircraft in the late
1950s.
Attempts continue to develop high speed ground
transportation.
The major technological development for the past 20 years
was to take advantage of the rapid advances in electronic
technology.
These technologies (known as ITS) include:
Information processing.
Communication
Control systems
Involved parties: Government, business, academic, and
research organizations.
New Technology Cont.
Goals of ITS programs
Improve safety.
Reduce congestion.
Improve mobility and accessibility.
Reduce the environmental impact of the transportation system
and increase energy efficiency.
Improve economic productivity.
Create a domestic ITS industry.
These goals can be achieved through:
Improved traffic control systems.
Improvements in the provision of information about the
transportation system to its users.
Automation of administrative and regulatory functions.
Improved systems for warning users to hazards.
New vehicle control systems
Other applications of electronic technology.
ITS Adopted Classifications
ITS user Services:
Travel & transportation management.
Travel demand management.
Public transportation operations.
Electronic payment services.
Commercial vehicle operations.
Emergency management.
Advanced vehicle control and safety systems.
ITS functional systems groups
Advanced traffic management systems (ATMS).
Advanced traveler information system (ATIS).
Advanced vehicle control system (AVCS).
New technology Cont.
Major technical concern in the development
of ITS has been achieving compatibility
among the various components of the
system.
In many cases, ITS involves applications of
components in environments that are
different from those they were originally
designed for.
As a result, problems in system integration
arise due to lack of compatibility between
various types of hardware, software, or
combinations of hardware and software.
Funding
Securing adequate financial resources is another
challenge facing both public agencies providing
transportation facilities and for private-sector firms
providing transportation services.
Public agencies lack support for not being considered
priority, thus the major source of financing is fuel tax,
fares, and tolls.
Fuel tax disadvantages as a revenue source:
Fixed amount per gallon, thus no automatic
adjustment for inflation.
Its revenue may be diminished by increased energy
efficiency and, since specific fuels are taxed, by use of
alternative fuels.
Subjected to Vicissitudes of politics (i.e. Looked upon
as convenient sources of revenue for non-
transportation purposes.
Funding Cont.
Private-sectors face difficulties in maintaining profitability
when transportation activities involves declining marginal
costs.
In case of scheduled transportation services, the cost of
carrying an additional passenger or ton may be very low and
may decrease with the volume of traffic, therefore
transportation firms tend to practice price-discrimination
(Charge different prices to different customers)
Challenges to transportation funding include:
Controlling construction and operating cost.
Securing public support for adequate levels of user charges and
for spending them.
Maintaining proper balance between public interest and profits in
provision of privatized facilities and services.
Providing regulatory environment in which transportation firms
can compete while still maintaining profitability.
Institutional Arrangement
New institutional arrangements have come about as a
response of perceived deficiencies in the existing
system , and were imposed by legislators or
government and in many cases they have been
resisted by established institutions.
Areas of institutional change:
Adjustment to the relation between the public and
the private sectors.
Attempts to overcome modal and jurisdictional
fragmentation.

The challenge is to overcome jurisdictional
fragmentation in traffic control, data management,
information services, and other areas affected by the
ITS initiatives.