A comparison of methods in planning urban transport networks, considering new perspectives in interoperable systems

Travel today increasingly involves major traffic routes, between different municipal territories, if not even on regional or interregional scales. This phenomenon requires appropriate responses on behalf of public transportation, which must offer sufficient, environmentally responsible, and economically sustainable services with an appealing appearance. With the arrival of forward-thinking transportation systems (innovative rubber-tyred vehicles, some featuring double articulation; interoperable vehicles such as tram-trains), technological innovations now offer a large number of solutions, but also present public administrations and transportation agencies with complicated decisions. The authors of this article propose a method of analysis to assist in these decisions by pre-emptively evaluating the actual technical and economic consequences resulting from the introduction of systems of the latest design.