Active Transport Network Design Based on Transit-Oriented Development and Complete Street Approach: Finding the Potential in Qazvin

Abstract

Today, automobile dependency constantly causes traffic congestion, delays, reduced access, increased fuel and energy consumption, and environmental emissions. Automobile dependency has caused many direct and indirect transportation problems that may influence our life. Urban planners and transportation engineers seek to improve transport networks considering social issues. One of the most successful solutions for advocating sustainable transport is transit-oriented development (TOD). Another solution that planners encourage to use is designing the roadways based on a complete street approach, which is a system that provides safe, convenient, and comfortable travel and increases accessibility for users of all ages regardless of their transport modes. The present study employed the saturated roads that have heavy traffic most of the time and public transport e-ticket data to investigate the potential complete streets in Qazvin. An online questionnaire was developed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method based on the TOD and the complete street framework to investigate the essential criteria for redesigning the network based on the active transport approach. Thus, after analyzing the six criteria (density, diversity, distance, accessibility, demand management, and design) and eight sub-criteria (pedestrian flow, pedestrian density, connectivity, safety, bike route, bus route, road width, and urban tree canopy index), the proposed active transport network emerged and results show that five high priority streets were identified to be considered as a solution.

Keywords

• transit-oriented development (TOD)
• complete street
• active transport
• public transport