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Clothing the Emperor?: Transport modelling and decision-making in Australian cities

In no field of planning is there more reliance on technical-rational decision-making processes than transportation planning. In Australian cities transport planners still heavily rely upon complex, quantitative transport models, especially the four-step model (FSM) and its variants, used at the regional, metropolitan and corridor levels of analysis. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a detailed critique of each stage of the FSM, there are numerous problems with its use that need to be addressed. This paper examines the empirical shortfalls of the technical-rational process, highlighting the reliance on a select few experts, limited public participation in modelling processes, and decision-makers who have little understanding of the methodological limitations inherent in transport modelling advice. Model deficiencies do not allow for, and may actually impede consideration of many of the most important emerging issues within cities, including road pricing, climate change and oil vulnerability, as well as long-held concerns such as land use changes, induced travel, the environment and sustainability. This paper identifies numerous inter-related concerns about the broader policy and political dimensions of technical-rational decision-making in the transport sector, and recognises the main tools used in technical assessments. Introduction The paper explores the limitations of conventional transport evaluation and analysis and its position within a broader institutional landscape. The paper argues the technical complexity of conventional transport models is such that understanding of their internal capacities and limitations is, in most jurisdictions, restricted to a small number of specialists. When coupled with the inherent inadequacies of transport modelling, this technical complexity may be seen to create a form of institutional risk for transport planning. This observation has implications for the quality of transport planning in cities. The paper first considers transport planning and the role of technical-rational evaluation. Issues pertaining to the broader political and policy dimensions of transport assessments are explored, highlighting recent research into these issues. The particular problems of transport modelling, especially the conventional four-step model (FSM), are then discussed, highlighting both the known and well-understood concerns, such as induced traffic, as well as a range of new and emergent issues that modelling may not be well suited to appraising. The paper concludes with an outline of further research possibilities in the Australian context. Transport planning: Techno-institutional views Has any policy field relied on technical-rational evaluation methods more than transport planning? Since the 1950s there has been an intense focus in transport planning on technical appraisal and modelling to solve problems of movement, often at the expense of other potential influences. And at the heart have been large city-wide strategic transport models, used to forecast travel flows and to test project or policy scenarios.