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Among the many pressing social issues facing today's urban areas is how to provide adequate and efficient transportation facilities while maintaining a healthy economic and social environment. In light of this problem the federal government is spending billions of dollars in improving existing transit systems and in developing new ones in major cities across the United States. There is considerable debate over how this funding could best be utilized. During the past few years there has been an increasing amount of literature published by leading government, private, and academic research centers in the areas of transportation policy, economics, and technological innovations. Libraries, particularly public libraries in those cities directly affected by these new transit programs, are likely to face an increasing number of reference questions from citizens concerned with how these new systems will affect their lives and the life of their city.

The purpose of this paper is to find ways to develop more efficient mass transit systems across the USA and, thus, make the best use of state/federal/municipal government funds and taxpayers’ monies. This paper conducts benchmarking studies. In doing so, this paper identifies the best-in class mass transit practices that every regional mass transit system can emulate.

The continuous underutilization of a mass transit system can increase public scrutiny concerning the increased investment in mass transit services. To defuse such scrutiny, this paper analyzes the past (in year 2011) performances of 515 mass transit agencies in the USA using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Also, to identify which factors influences those performances, the authors paired DEA scores for transit efficiency at the state level against a set of independent variables using a special form of regression analysis called Tobit regression.

The authors found that the greater population density of the service area, the greater number of riders can be served in a short amount of distance and time. Also, the authors discovered that the transportation mode of mass transit services could affect mass transit efficiency. On the other hand, the authors found no evidence indicating that the public ownership or private operation of transit systems could make any differences in the transit efficiency.

This paper is one of the few that assessed the performance of mass transit systems in comparison to their peers using a large-scale data and identify the leading causes of mass transit inefficiency. Thus, this paper helps transit authorities in handling juggling acts of protecting the conflicting interests of government policy makers against the general public and, then, make sensible future investment decisions.

In Guangzhou, the largest city in southern China, car ownership is increasing beyond the capacity of the road system. This leaves streets gridlocked and parking facilities inaccessible, thus under-utilized. At the same time, Guangzhou's zoning code calls for additional off-site parking which is likely to encumber development. This chapter documents and discusses policies in Guangzhou that affect and are affected by parking and how they relate to City goals.

The chapter explores the relationship between three interrelated topics: (1) today’s parking policies in Guangzhou, regulated by a variety of municipal agencies, (2) case studies of two large developments and their respective parking supplies and demands, and (3) city goals and objectives.

There is opportunity for Guangzhou to implement strategies to manage its parking supply relative to its roadway capacity, plus integrate its parking policies to the overall transportation system.

Emerging cities can learn from other’s experiences. Parking supply affects the decisions people make about how they will travel and this in turn affects congestion, air quality and quality of life. Using smart parking regulations means an end to inadvertently fostering dependency on the car and the start of creating sustainable communities.

The value of the chapter comes from the way it builds from existing evidence to further understand the challenges of an emerging, fast-growing city.

Risk analysis plays a vital role in controlling and managing cost overruns in complex construction projects, particularly where uncertainty is high. This study attempts to address an important issue of cost overrun that encountered by metropolitan rapid transit projects in relation to the significance of risk involved under high uncertainty.

In order to solve cost overrun problems in metropolitan transit projects and facilitate the decision-makers for effective future budgeting, a cost-risk contingency framework has been designed using fuzzy logic, analytical hierarchy process and Monte Carlo simulation.

Initially, a hierarchical breakdown structure of important complexity-driven risk factors has been conceptualized herein using relative importance index. Later, a proposed cost-risk contingency framework has investigated the expected total construction cost in order to consider the additional budgeted cost required to mitigate the risk consequences for particular project activity. The results of cost-risk analysis imply that poor design issues, an increase in material prices and delays in relocating facilities show higher dependency and increase the risk of cost overrun in metropolitan transit projects.

The findings and implication for project managers could possibly be achieved by assuming the proposed cost-risk contingency framework under high uncertainty of cost found in this research. Furthermore, this procedure may be used by experts from other engineering domains by replacing and considering the complex relationship between complexity-risk factors.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a practical contingency model to identify and evaluate the additional risk cost required to compute total construction cost for getting stability in future budgeting.

The purpose of this paper is to study the performance of transportation infrastructure of Thailand. A set of performance indicators of Thailand’s transportation infrastructure is proposed and gathered. The relationship between existing transportation infrastructure performance and Thailand’s economy is investigated.

The framework for determining Transportation Infrastructure Performance Index (TPI), proposed by the US Chamber of Commerce, is adapted for assessing the efficiency of Thailand’s transportation infrastructure. The analytical hierarchy process is employed in the process of constructing Thailand TPI. The relationship between TPI and Thailand’s economic growth is examined using multiple regression analysis.

The performance of Thailand’s transportation infrastructure had been continuously increased from 19.69 in 2005 to 61.52 in 2010. Great emphasis on improvement of the transportation infrastructure system should be placed as an increase in one unit of TPI results in the improvement by Baht449.420 of Thailand’s GDP per capita.

The most critical issue arisen in the data collection process is the unavailability of data for some indicators in the TPI framework. Consequently, some indicators that contain insufficient data were excluded.

The proposed set of indicators is practical and instrumental in assessing the transportation infrastructure performance of Thailand, and investigating its relationship with the economy.

This research proposes a framework for quantifying the performance of transportation infrastructure, and develops the first national composite index to account for the overall performance.

This chapter outlines complex and conflicting issues related to designing tall buildings. It gathers a vast amount of fragmented criticism and concerns and organizes them around the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. Mapping out the “unsustainable” aspects forms the foundation for addressing them in future research and tall building developments. The chapter engages the reader with a preliminary discussion on potential solutions to the outlined problems. It also balances extensive criticism by highlighting the virtues and advantages of tall buildings. Consequently, this chapter forms a foundation for improving the sustainability of tall buildings whenever and wherever they are constructed.

This paper sets out describe the creation of sustainable urban planning concepts based on optimized urban landscape functioning. It gives an account of the formation and transformation processes of natural and artificial streaming structures.

The paper examines the present‐day approaches to the environmental assessment and zoning of urban territories. This was achieved by creating the conceptual methodological basis for the assessment and classification of urban landscapes.

Based on an analysis of the urban planning development of the Moscow agglomeration, principles have been proposed for the shaping of sustainable urban planning structures – landscape planning that can be applied to the management of the territorial growth of large cities and urban agglomerations. First, the shaping and reconstruction of the city structure, including the structure of land management, as well as the mutual arrangement of functional areas, should be based on the need to preserve the axes – the lines and planes of mass, energy and information transfer of landscapes of various orders. Second, the order of preserved landscape axes depends on the organisational complexity of a territory. Third, assessment of the sustainability of the structure of a city and agglomeration should be based on the criteria of river systems along their borders, such as the quantity and composition of water, its temperature, retention of the annual functioning cycle and biodiversity. Finally, urban planning control regimes should be established across the entire city and they should be determined by the position of the territory in the city's landscape structure.

This work will provide a better understanding of integrated environmental systems to enable development of best management practices in the city of Moscow.

Sub-Saharan African cities suffer from poor quality transport options, excessive congestion and pollution. The informal transport sector contributes to these problems, but also represents part of the solution. This chapter reflects upon research undertaken to better understand the nature of these services, in the hope of providing insights into possible remediation.

Three case cities were studied: Cape Town; Dar es Salaam; and Nairobi. Each was examined by resident universities with respect to the quantity and quality of paratransit services provided, user satisfaction, business models and industry governance.

Each city has differences, but there are recurring themes. All are experiencing population growth and increased motorization, which steadily deteriorates operating environments. Law enforcement capability is limited and sometimes impeded by corruption. Operating enterprises tend to be fragmented. Financial resources are typically limited such that vehicle maintenance and replacement suffers. The safety and quality of service for passengers are therefore often poor. The prevalence of paratransit services is, however, such that any strategy to reform public transport systems needs to consider a role for them within a scheduled-paratransit hybrid network. Numerous challenges will need to be overcome for successful integration, but significant improvements to service quality can be made in the near- to medium-term through supporting interventions in business development, operating environment, vehicle fleets and operations.

Extension of the research programme could yield some significant improvements to operations and financial sustainability, through the piloting of innovative, lower cost technologies based on smartphone and other ICT technologies.

The chapter reveals that significant improvements to service quality can be made in the near- to medium-term through supporting interventions in business development, operating environment, vehicle fleets and operations.

The purpose of this study is to determine how to achieve a balance between freedom and control in public space. It analyses the relationship between freedom and control to identify phenomena and offer users and policymakers instructions for achieving that balance. Public space, including privately owned public space, is important to urban living. People have both the right to use public space and the responsibility to protect it. Both freedom and control should exist in public space in an appropriate combination. It is impossible and inappropriate for us to ask for absolute freedom or endure unreasonable control.

A case study of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) reveals typical freedom/control relationships. Quantitative descriptions are given based on field observations.

Freedom and control are primary factors affecting the quality of urban life and management of city space. They depend on and conflict with each other. The balance between freedom and control is a balance between diverse spaces. The “freedom space” belonging to both citizens and authorities determines whether freedom and control are balanced. Ethics and strategies constitute control. Only when each authority and user obtains a proper freedom space can freedom and control achieve balance in public space.

Freedom and control differ across cities because they are both affected by culture, history and tradition. As each city has its own characteristics, the freedom and control in each open space are distinctive. Balancing freedom and control requires an understanding of a city’s background and the era. While this paper does not attempt to achieve this understanding, further studies could devote more attention to dimensions of time and location.

The findings provide recommendations for users, policymakers and construction and management companies that will allow the management of harmonious and high-quality open spaces.

Freedom and control are two main factors affecting quality of life. The balance between freedom and control may bring a harmony and stable society environment. It would benefit both the authority and the people a lot.

This study provides a systematic analysis of freedom and control in public space and makes a valuable contribution to quality urban space policy, design and management.