Issues in Statewide Transportation Planning

Salient methodological issues involved in comprehensive transportation planning at the state level are stated herein. Various concepts developed by urban transportation studies, selected regional transportation planning efforts, and regional science in general are synthesized. The first section highlights important distinctions between public and private enterprise and the planning implications thereof. Questions of overall transportation planning strategy are then considered, with emphasis on the limited relevance of formal optimization concepts. Given these very basic points, the remainder of the paper characterizes the dominant role of forecasting in the planning process, and elaborates on the design of a forecasting model system appropriate for statewide transportation planning.