Abstract
Transport network planning in Egypt suffers from insufficient planning that should be done prior to execution. This research presses on the fact that personal experience and cognition alone cannot be the main factors of design that it should go hand in hand with scientific measurable analysis and evidence. Hence, it focuses on having a deeper understanding of the influence of spatial network configuration on urban activity and centrality. It proposes that Space Syntax, as a syntactic model, has potential to be utilized in optimizing transportation networks, based on Space Syntax ability to model and predict streets with most urban activity and areas that act as central gathering points, and therefore, giving a scientific basis to evident decisions to choose optimum routes and stations for transit networks. The study hypothesizes that adding Space Syntax spatial configuration analysis as a layer to the whole process can give a better understanding of the network. This research applies Space Syntax configurational analysis with the aim to present an evidence approach to optimize its transportation network. The proposed approach is applied on Mansoura City, an intermediate city in Dakahlia governorate in Egypt. The methodology includes field observations using gate counting technique to identify movement flows in different parts of the city, running a segment map analysis of the city’s street network and validating the results of the analysis through comparing computed values with observations. Results identify streets with major urban movement which represent potential transit routes and areas that are considered urban centers which represent potential transit stations. These results verify the important role of accessibility analysis in transportation planning, and therefore presents an applicable approach to identify optimum transit routes and stations that have higher potential to act as active movement corridors at a city scale.
Highlights
T HE Inappropriate planning of transportation networks in Egyptian cities has led people to resort more to private cars which as a result caused many negative consequences, such as congestion, increased rate of accidents, and increased rate of harmful emissions
This study aims at proposing an evidence based approach to planning transportation networks through spatially analyzing the road network of Mansoura city in order to identify roads that have good potential for transit routes and areas that have good potential to have transit stations based on Space Syntax spatial measures
Space Syntax approach and the traditionally followed approach, Space Syntax has shown to offer great potential to be utilized in transportation network planning and assist in the process of identifying optimum transit routes and stations locations
Summary
T HE Inappropriate planning of transportation networks in Egyptian cities has led people to resort more to private cars which as a result caused many negative consequences, such as congestion, increased rate of accidents, and increased rate of harmful emissions. Traditional transit planning mostly applies caroriented planning while envisioning infrastructure for transit [3], where priority is given to private vehicles rather than public transportation modes This method creates difficulties later on, when aligning routes and stations with the planned network. Research in urban spatial morphology has highly advanced measures which enable researchers and planners to quickly better understand potentials of accessibility in different areas of cities and spatial structures [5] These advanced measures can be put to good use in transit planning. This research focuses on the potential of using spatial configuration analysis developed by Space Syntax as an approach to identify and evaluate optimized routes and stations for public transportation networks. The research ends with a discussion and conclusion of the potentials and limitations of the proposed approach and its applications
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