TRAFFIC CALMING IN CITIES AND INTEGRATED TOWN PLANNING: A LITERATURE STUDY

It has become more and more common among Swedish municipalities to implement traffic calming measures, with the aim to improve safety and functioning of the local transport system. A plethora of different measures and designs of physical constructions capable of controlling the speed of motorized vehicles can be found when consulting modern planning guidelines and new handbooks in traffic planning. This report compiles and discusses the literature in the fields of research that can be labelled as critical in the sense that increased knowledge is a necessary prerequisite if traffic calming and speed control constructions shall be used as important measures in integrated transport planning strategies. The areas of investigation that are discussed in the report are the following: - Design and content of transport strategies as a component in local planning - Acceptance and demand among individuals for different designs of the traffic system with focus on traffic calming - Traffic calming and consequences for retailing and other commercial activities in inner cities, together with inner city attractiveness and livability in general - The adaptation of traffic calming techniques to public transport and emergency services, and the opportunities to use traffic calming to enhance the competitiveness of public transport - Environmental impact with emphasis on exhaust and noise emissions. The report is concluded with a discussion of the need for further research. It is necessary to find methods and procedures capable of sorting and ranking all the different approaches that are used when analyzing traffic calming and environmental consequences. The state-of-the-art in this field of research is unfortunately very difficult to describe. It is plausible to assume that the reason for this confusion is a large variation between different studies concerning measurement methods, and scope and limitations. But the main part of the discussion of further research is devoted to research that can support the achievement of a more integrated local planning directly. The areas of investigation that are put forward are the creation of general evaluation models designed to evaluate the entire spectrum of relevant measures in transport strategies and not exclusively dealing with special issues, systematic compilations and treatments of knowledge and experience in chosen countries and cities, increasing knowledge about local planning processes in Sweden, and analyzing the demand for different designs of urban transport systems. It is of course necessary both from a democratic and an economical point of view, that the design and performance of transport systems in towns and cities are supported by a majority of the inhabitants. (A) This report is also available electronically via Internet at http://www.vti.se/PDF/reports/M946.pdf.