The course consists of three elements: a brief account of current approaches to transport planning, a critique of these approaches, and a detailed account of a people-centered approach to transport planning. The course will commence with a concise account of the current approaches to transport planning: traditional transport planning, sustainable transport planning, and transport planning for accessibility. The basic principles and key elements of these approaches will be presented, including travel demand modeling and transport project appraisal approaches (notably, cost-benefit analysis). The basic principles of these three approaches will be illustrated with practical case studies, from Israel and abroad. Subsequently, each approach will be criticized, in particular from a people-centered perspective.
The second part of the course will be dedicated to an alternative approach: people-centered transport planning. The approach takes inspiration from other major fields of government intervention, such as housing, basic education and health, in which debates about fairness are common and often provide a foundational element of government policies and interventions. Based on philosophies of social justice, an alternative model will be developed: transport planning based on principles of justice. This fundamentally people-centered approach has far-reaching implications for virtually all components of transport planning, as well as transport-related land use planning. In the course, these implications will be addressed. This includes the consequences for travel demand modeling and cost-benefit analysis, which are core tools for long-term decision-making on transport investments within the traditional approach to transport
planning.