mass transit

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mass transit summary

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in mass transit in The future of mass transportation

Also known as: city transportation, mass transportation, public transit, public transportation

Written by Joseph L. Schofer

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: May 1, 2025 • Article History

Also called:: mass transportation, or public transportation

Related Topics:: bus; subway; streetcar; carpooling; cable car

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Automatic train operation has been suggested as a way to increase capacity (by allowing closer vehicle spacing, since computers can react faster than humans to avoid collision), reduce travel time (by operating vehicles at higher speeds), and reduce costs. Some heavy rail transit systems operating on separate guideways are now partially or fully automated—e.g., the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in San Francisco and the Metro system in Washington, D.C. The capital cost of automated systems is high, and promised reductions in operating costs have not always been achieved because of maintenance requirements.

There have been many proposals, and some field implementations, of small (3–5-passenger), automated vehicles operating on separate, usually elevated, guideways. These personal rapid transit (PRT) systems function like “horizontal elevators,” coming to a station in response to a traveler’s demand and moving directly from origin to destination. Because of this service pattern and the small size of the vehicles, PRT systems indeed offer personalized service much like an automobile, including the ability to control who rides in one’s party, which provides privacy and security. PRT systems have low capacity in passengers carried per hour, and guideway and vehicle costs are high. They are best suited for short distribution trips around and within activity centres such as office complexes, airports, and shopping centres.

When the PRT concept is extended to larger (15–25-passenger) vehicles, the term automated guideway transit (AGT) is sometimes applied. AGT systems have been built to provide circulation in downtown areas (e.g., Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida, both in the United States) and on a dispersed American college campus (West Virginia University, at Morgantown). The vehicles commonly have rubber tires and operate on twin concrete beams, elevated or at grade level. AGT is a scaled-down, modernized application of rail rapid transit—slower, with smaller, lighter cars, more easily fit into established communities. Monorail systems are an AGT concept using a single guide and support beam, usually elevated, with a vehicle riding on top of, or suspended beneath, the beam. Monorail systems can be found at some activity centres in the United States (e.g., the downtown area of Seattle, Washington; Disneyland in Anaheim, California; and Pearl City Shopping Center in Honolulu) and a system completed in 1901 continues to serve Wuppertal, Germany. There is no inherent advantage in monorail other than its novelty. Switching trains from track to track can be complex, and the lack of standardization makes acquisition and maintenance costly.

Cost reduction through management and contracting

Transit systems are shrinking because fare revenues cannot cover costs, and there are many other demands on government monies. Some of this shrinkage is to be expected, because as the market becomes smaller (because auto use expands, people move to the suburbs, and so forth), the service should get smaller. Mass transportation systems, particularly those in older cities, need to be rationalized by eliminating underutilized components and improving service on remaining lines.

Costs can be controlled through administrative reorganization to increase efficiency. The trend toward public ownership of systems, nearly complete by the 1970s in the United States, has been redirected by contracting out many services to private operators through competitive bidding. This has been a successful cost-cutting strategy for services that can be broken into manageable work pieces, such as demand-responsive services for the handicapped. Competition in the bidding process, as well as incentive contracts that reward providers for efficiency, can keep costs down. In some cases, complete reprivatization of transportation services may provide cost reductions and service improvements as long as regulatory protections assure service for all markets.

Financing options

There also is a need for a regular source of subsidies, so that operators do not have to return annually to legislative bodies to fight for survival. Local sales taxes and special assessments within districts where the benefits of transit are focused are logical sources. It is also important to create incentives and restrictions to encourage service providers to be efficient and limit subsidy costs. Some communities require that some minimum share of operating costs be paid with passenger fares, which ensures that the primary beneficiaries (the riders) pay a reasonable share of costs. If there is one key to the survival and success of mass transportation, it is enlightened public policy that defines the evolving mission of transit in the community, implements economical ways to deliver quality service, and provides for stable financial support.

Joseph L. Schofer

urban planning

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urban planning summary

urban planning

Also known as: city planning, town planning, urban design

Written by Susan S. Fainstein

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: May 5, 2025 • Article History

Key People:: Andrés Duany; Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk; José Benito Churriguera; Henry Ford; Le Corbusier

Related Topics:: gridiron plan; shanshui city; microregion; centuriation; New Urbanism

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urban planning, design and regulation of the uses of space that focus on the physical form, economic functions, and social impacts of the urban environment and on the location of different activities within it. Because urban planning draws upon engineering, architectural, and social and political concerns, it is variously a technical profession, an endeavour involving political will and public participation, and an academic discipline. Urban planning concerns itself with both the development of open land (“greenfields sites”) and the revitalization of existing parts of the city, thereby involving goal setting, data collection and analysis, forecasting, design, strategic thinking, and public consultation. Increasingly, the technology of geographic information systems (GIS) has been used to map the existing urban system and to project the consequences of changes. In the late 20th century the term sustainable development came to represent an ideal outcome in the sum of all planning goals. As advocated by the United Nations-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development in Our Common Future (1987), sustainability refers to “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While there is widespread consensus on this general goal, most major planning decisions involve trade-offs between subsidiary objectives and thus frequently involve conflict.

The modern origins of urban planning lie in a social movement for urban reform that arose in the latter part of the 19th century as a reaction against the disorder of the industrial city. Many visionaries of the period sought an ideal city, yet practical considerations of adequate sanitation, movement of goods and people, and provision of amenities also drove the desire for planning. Contemporary planners seek to balance the conflicting demands of social equity, economic growth, environmental sensitivity, and aesthetic appeal. The result of the planning process may be a formal master plan for an entire city or metropolitan area, a neighbourhood plan, a project plan, or a set of policy alternatives. Successful implementation of a plan usually requires entrepreneurship and political astuteness on the part of planners and their sponsors, despite efforts to insulate planning from politics. While based in government, planning increasingly involves private-sector participation in “public-private partnerships.”

Urban planning emerged as a scholarly discipline in the 1900s. In Great Britain the first academic planning program began at the University of Liverpool in 1909, and the first North American program was established at Harvard University in 1924. It is primarily taught at the postgraduate level, and its curriculum varies widely from one university to another. Some programs maintain the traditional emphasis on physical design and land use; others, especially those that grant doctoral degrees, are oriented toward the social sciences. The discipline’s theoretical core, being somewhat amorphous, is better defined by the issues it addresses than by any dominant paradigm or prescriptive approach. Representative issues especially concern the recognition of a public interest and how it should be determined, the physical and social character of the ideal city, the possibility of achieving change in accordance with consciously determined goals, the extent to which consensus on goals is attainable through communication, the role of citizens versus public officials and private investors in shaping the city, and, on a methodological level, the appropriateness of quantitative analysis and the “rational model” of decision making (discussed below). Most degree programs in urban planning consist principally of applied courses on topics ranging from environmental policy to transportation planning to housing and community economic development.

The development of urban planning

Early history

Evidence of planning has been unearthed in the ruins of cities in China, India, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean world, and South and Central America. Early examples of efforts toward planned urban development include orderly street systems that are rectilinear and sometimes radial; division of a city into specialized functional quarters; development of commanding central sites for palaces, temples, and civic buildings; and advanced systems of fortification, water supply, and drainage. Most of the evidence is in smaller cities that were built in comparatively short periods as colonies. Often the central cities of ancient states grew to substantial size before they achieved governments capable of imposing controls.

For several centuries during the Middle Ages, there was little building of cities in Europe. Eventually towns grew up as centres of church or feudal authority, of marketing or trade. As the urban population grew, the constriction caused by walls and fortifications led to overcrowding, the blocking out of air and light, and very poor sanitation. Certain quarters of the cities, either by custom or fiat, were restricted to different nationalities, classes, or trades, as still occurs in many contemporary cities of the developing world.

The physical form of medieval and Renaissance towns and cities followed the pattern of the village, spreading along a street or a crossroads in circular patterns or in irregular shapes, though rectangular patterns tended to characterize some of the newer towns. Most streets were little more than footpaths—more a medium for communication than for transportation—and even in major European cities paving was not widely introduced before the 12th century (1184 in Paris, 1235 in Florence, and 1300 in Lübeck). As the population of the city grew, walls were often expanded, but few cities at the time exceeded a mile in length. Sometimes sites were changed, as in Lübeck, and many new cities emerged with increasing population—frequently about one day’s walk apart. Towns ranged in population from several hundred to perhaps 40,000 (as in London in the late 14th century, although London’s population had been as high as 80,000 before the arrival of the Black Death). Paris and Venice were exceptions, reaching 100,000.

Conscious attempts to plan cities reemerged in Europe during the Renaissance. Although these efforts partly aimed at improving circulation and providing military defense, their prime objective was often the glorification of a ruler or a state. From the 16th century to the end of the 18th, many cities were laid out and built with monumental splendour. The result may have pleased and inspired the citizens, but it rarely contributed to their health, to the comfort of their homes, or to efficiency in manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.

The New World absorbed the planning concepts of European absolutism to only a limited degree. Pierre L’Enfant’s grandiose plan for Washington, D.C. (1791), exemplified this transference, as did later City Beautiful projects, which aimed for grandeur in the siting of public buildings but exhibited less concern for the efficiency of residential, commercial, and industrial development. More influential on the layout of U.S. cities, however, was the rigid grid plan of Philadelphia, designed by William Penn (1682). This plan traveled west with the pioneers, since it was the simplest method of dividing surveyed territory. Although it took no cognizance of topography, it facilitated the development of land markets by establishing standard-sized lots that could be easily bought and sold—even sight unseen.

In much of the world, city plans were based on the concept of a centrally located public space. The plans differed, however, in their prescriptions for residential development. In the United States the New England town grew around a central commons; initially a pasture, it provided a focus of community life and a site for a meetinghouse, tavern, smithy, and shops and was later reproduced in the central squares of cities and towns throughout the country. Also from the New England town came the tradition of the freestanding single-family house that became the norm for most metropolitan areas. The central plaza, place, or square provided a focal point for European city plans as well. In contrast to American residential development, though, European domestic architecture was dominated by the attached house, while elsewhere in the world the marketplace or bazaar rather than an open space acted as the cynosure of cities. Courtyard-style domiciles characterized the Mediterranean region, while compounds of small houses fenced off from the street formed many African and Asian settlements. (See atrium.)