Transportation, Energy Use and Environmental Impacts shows researchers, students and professionals the important connection between transportation planning, energy use and emissions. The book examines the major transportation activities, components, systems and subsystems by mode. It closely explores the resulting environmental impacts from transport planning, construction and the decommissioning of transportation systems. It discusses transportation planning procedures from an energy use standpoint, offering guidelines to make transportation more energy consumption efficient. Other sections cover propulsion and energy use systems, focusing on road transportation, railway, waterway, pipeline, air, air pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions, and more.
A multi-disciplinary approach to transportation planning fundamentals The Transportation Planning Handbook is a comprehensive, practice-oriented reference that presents the fundamental concepts of transportation planning alongside proven techniques. This new fourth edition is more strongly focused on serving the needs of all users, the role of safety in the planning process, and transportation planning in the context of societal concerns, including the development of more sustainable transportation solutions. The content structure has been redesigned with a new format that promotes a more functionally driven multimodal approach to planning, design, and implementation, including guidance toward the latest tools and technology. The material has been updated to reflect the latest changes to major transportation resources such as the HCM, MUTCD, HSM, and more, including the most current ADA accessibility regulations. Transportation planning has historically followed the rational planning model of defining objectives, identifying problems, generating and evaluating alternatives, and developing plans. Planners are increasingly expected to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach, especially in light of the rising importance of sustainability and environmental concerns. This book presents the fundamentals of transportation planning in a multidisciplinary context, giving readers a practical reference for day-to-day answers. Serve the needs of all users Incorporate safety into the planning process Examine the latest transportation planning software packages Get up to date on the latest standards, recommendations, and codes Developed by The Institute of Transportation Engineers, this book is the culmination of over seventy years of transportation planning solutions, fully updated to reflect the needs of a changing society. For a comprehensive guide with practical answers, The Transportation Planning Handbook is an essential reference.
All phases of road developmentâ€"from construction and use by vehicles to maintenanceâ€"affect physical and chemical soil conditions, water flow, and air and water quality, as well as plants and animals. Roads and traffic can alter wildlife habitat, cause vehicle-related mortality, impede animal migration, and disperse nonnative pest species of plants and animals. Integrating environmental considerations into all phases of transportation is an important, evolving process. The increasing awareness of environmental issues has made road development more complex and controversial. Over the past two decades, the Federal Highway Administration and state transportation agencies have increasingly recognized the importance of the effects of transportation on the natural environment. This report provides guidance on ways to reconcile the different goals of road development and environmental conservation. It identifies the ecological effects of roads that can be evaluated in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of roads and offers several recommendations to help better understand and manage ecological impacts of paved roads.
This report describes the transportation planning process and discusses where and how environmental factors can be addressed effectively at the state and metropolitan levels. This report should be especially useful to federal, state department of transportation (DOT), metropolitan planning organization (MPO), and local transportation planners, as well as other practitioners concerned with addressing environmental factors within transportation systems planning, priority programming, and project development planning leading to implementation. The research focused on environmental issues within the long-range transportation planning processes of state DOTs and MPOs and included the following: (1) a comprehensive review of recent literature; (2) a survey of approaches employed by state DOTs, MPOs, and environmental regulatory agencies; (3) a review of federal regulations and guidance on environmental factors; and (4) case studies to synthesize current practice in environmental planning.
This guide was written as a quick primer for transportation professionals and analysts who assess the impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities. It outlines the community impact assessment process, highlights critical areas that must be examined, identifies basic tools and information sources, and stimulates the thought-process related to individual projects. In the past, the consequences of transportation investments on communities have often been ignored or introduced near the end of a planning process, reducing them to reactive considerations at best. The goals of this primer are to increase awareness of the effects of transportation actions on the human environment and emphasize that community impacts deserve serious attention in project planning and development-attention comparable to that given the natural environment. Finally, this guide is intended to provide some tips for facilitating public involvement in the decision making process.
A multi-disciplinary approach to transportation planning fundamentals The Transportation Planning Handbook is a comprehensive, practice-oriented reference that presents the fundamental concepts of transportation planning alongside proven techniques. This new fourth edition is more strongly focused on serving the needs of all users, the role of safety in the planning process, and transportation planning in the context of societal concerns, including the development of more sustainable transportation solutions. The content structure has been redesigned with a new format that promotes a more functionally driven multimodal approach to planning, design, and implementation, including guidance toward the latest tools and technology. The material has been updated to reflect the latest changes to major transportation resources such as the HCM, MUTCD, HSM, and more, including the most current ADA accessibility regulations. Transportation planning has historically followed the rational planning model of defining objectives, identifying problems, generating and evaluating alternatives, and developing plans. Planners are increasingly expected to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach, especially in light of the rising importance of sustainability and environmental concerns. This book presents the fundamentals of transportation planning in a multidisciplinary context, giving readers a practical reference for day-to-day answers. Serve the needs of all users Incorporate safety into the planning process Examine the latest transportation planning software packages Get up to date on the latest standards, recommendations, and codes Developed by The Institute of Transportation Engineers, this book is the culmination of over seventy years of transportation planning solutions, fully updated to reflect the needs of a changing society. For a comprehensive guide with practical answers, The Transportation Planning Handbook is an essential reference.
"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 546 examines where and how safety can be effectively addressed and integrated into long-range transportation planning at the state and metropolitan levels. The report includes guidance for practitioners in identifying and evaluating alternative ways to incorporate and integrate safety considerations in long-range statewide and metropolitan transportation planning and decision-making processes"--Publisher's description.
Roads and parking lots in the United States cover more ground than the entire state of Georgia. And while proponents of sustainable transit often focus on getting people off the roads, they will remain at the heart of our transportation systems for the foreseeable future. In Creating Green Roadways, James and Matthew Sipes demonstrate that roads don’t have to be the enemy of sustainability: they can be designed to minimally impact the environment while improving quality of life. The authors examine traditional, utilitarian methods of transportation planning that have resulted in a host of negative impacts: from urban sprawl and congestion to loss of community identity and excess air and water pollution. They offer a better approach—one that blends form and function. Creating Green Roadways covers topics including transportation policy, the basics of green road design, including an examination of complete streets, public involvement, road ecology, and the economics of sustainable roads. Case studies from metropolitan, suburban, and rural transportation projects around the country, along with numerous photographs, illustrate what makes a project successful. The need for this information has never been greater, as more than thirty percent of America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, more than a quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and congestion in communities of all sizes has never been worse. Creating Green Roadways offers a practical strategy for rethinking how we design, plan, and maintain our transportation infrastructure.
Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.
