Urban Transportation Planning In the United States: An Historical Overview: Fifth Edition
Chapter 7. Beginnings of Multimodal Urban Transportation Planning
By 1970, there were 273 urbanized areas actively engaged in continuing urban transportation planning. (Figure 11) By then, however, the urban transportation planning process was receiving criticism on a number of issues. It was criticized for inadequate treatment of the social and environmental impacts of transportation facilities and services. The planning process had still not become multimodal and was not adequately evaluating a wide range of alternatives. Planning was focused almost exclusively on long-range time horizons, ignoring more immediate problems. And, the technical procedures to carry out planning were criticized for being too cumbersome, time-consuming, and rigid to adapt to new issues quickly. There was also concern expressed about their theoretical validity.
During the early 1970s actions were taken to address these criticisms. Legislation was passed that increased the capital funds available for mass transportation and provided federal assistance for operating costs. Greater flexibility was permitted in the use of some highway funds including their use on transit projects. These provisions placed transit on a more equal footing with highways and considerably strengthened multimodal planning and implementation.
In addition, the federal government took steps to better integrate urban transportation planning at the local level, and to require shorter-range capital improvement programs along with long-range plans. Emphasis was placed on non-capital intensive measures to reduce traffic congestion as alternatives to major construction projects. And, state highway agencies were required to develop procedures for addressing social, economic, and environmental impacts of highways.
Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970
The Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970 was another landmark in federal financing for mass transportation. It provided the first long-term commitment of federal funds. Until the passage of this act, federal funds for mass transportation had been limited. It was difficult to plan and implement a program of mass transportation projects over several years because of the uncertainty of future funding.
The 1970 act implied a federal commitment for the expenditure of at least $10 billion over a 12-year period to permit confident and continuing local planning and greater flexibility in program administration. The act authorized $3.1 billion to finance urban mass transportation beginning in fiscal year 1971. It permitted the use of "contract authority" whereby the Secretary of Transportation was authorized to incur obligations on behalf of the United States with Congress pledged to appropriate the funds required to liquidate the obligations. This provision allowed long-term commitments of funds to be made.
This act also established a strong federal policy on transportation for elderly and handicapped persons:
"...elderly and handicapped persons have the same right as other persons to utilize mass transportation facilities and services; that special efforts shall be made in the planning and design of mass transportation facilities and services so that the availability to elderly and handicapped persons to mass transportation which they can effectively utilize will be assured...." (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1979b)
The act authorized that 2 percent of the capital grant and 1.5 percent of the research funds might be set aside and used to finance programs to aid elderly and handicapped persons.
The act also added requirements for public hearings on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of a proposed project and on its consistency with the comprehensive plan for the area. It also required an analysis of the environmental impacts of the proposed project and for the Secretary of Transportation to determine that there was no feasible or prudent alternative to any adverse impact that might result.
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 established the federal-aid Urban highway system. The system in each urban area was to be designed to serve major centers of activity and to serve local goals and objectives. Routes on the system were to be selected by local officials and state departments cooperatively. This provision significantly increased the influence of local jurisdictions in urban highway decisions. The influence of local officials in urban areas was further strengthened by an amendment to Section 134 on urban transportation planning:
"No highway project may be constructed in any urban area of 50,000 population or more unless the responsible local officials of such urban area...have been consulted and their views considered with respect to the corridor, the location and the design of the project" (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1980a).
Funds for the federal-aid Urban system were to be allocated to the states on the basis of total urban population within the state. The act also authorized the expenditure of highway funds on exclusive or preferential bus lanes and related facilities. This could only be done if the bus project reduced the need for additional highway construction or if no other highway project could provide the person-carrying capacity of the bus project. There had to be assurances, as well, that the transit operator would utilize the facility. An additional provision of the act authorized expenditures of highway funds on fringe and corridor parking facilities adjacent to the federal-aid Urban system that were designed in conjunction with public transportation services.
This act also incorporated a number of requirements related to the environment. One required the issuance of guidelines for full consideration of economic, social, and environmental impacts of highway projects. A second related to the promulgation of guidelines for assuring that highway projects were consistent with SIPs developed under the Clean Air Act.
As a result of the 1970 highway and transit acts, projects for both modes would have to meet similar criteria related to impact assessment and public hearings. The highway act also increased the federal matching share to 70 percent for all non-Interstate highways, making it comparable to the 66-2/3 percent federal share for mass transportation capital projects. In addition, the highway act legally required consistency between SIPs and urban highway plans.
Conference on Urban Commodity Flow
The urban transportation planning processes and methodologies that had been developed through the decade of the 1960s emphasized passenger movement. Little attention was given to the problems of commodity movements in urban areas. The majority of studies of urban goods movement had been limited to those related to trucks. Data on commodity movements was seldom collected because of the difficulty in tracking the movements and the lack of available methods (Chappell and Smith, 1971).
In recognition of the need for more information and better planning concerning the movement of goods in urban areas, a Conference on Urban Commodity Flow was convened at Airlie House in Warrentown, Virginia on December 6-9, 1970. Initially, the conference was to focus on information and techniques to forecast urban commodity movement. But, as planning for the conference progressed, there emerged a need for a more fundamental understanding of commodity movements and the economic, social, political and technological forces that affected them (Highway Research Board, 1971a).
The conference revealed the lack of information on urban goods movement and the need for such information to make informed policy decisions on investment and regulation. The various viewpoints on the problems of urban commodity flow were explored. Planners, shippers, government agencies, freight carrier, and citizens saw the problems and consequences differently. With so many actors, the institutional issues were considered to be too complex to mount effective strategies to address the problems (Highway Research Board, 1971a).
The conferees concluded that goods movement needed more emphasis in the urban transportation planning process and that techniques for forecasting goods movement needed to be developed. The regulations and programs of federal, state and local agencies needed to be coordinated to avoid conflicting effects on the goods movement industry that were not in the best interest of the public. Greater efforts were called for to explore means of reducing the economic, social, and environmental costs of goods movement in urban areas (Highway Research Board, 1971b).
This conference directed attention to the neglect of goods movement in the urban transportation planning process, and the complexity of the goods movement issue. It generated more interest and research in the subject and focused on the opportunity to develop strategies to deal with urban goods movement problems.
Mt. Pocono Conference on Urban Transportation Planning
In recognition of the widespread awareness that urban transportation planning had not kept pace with changing conditions, a conference on Organization for Continuing Urban Transportation Planning was held at Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania, in 1971. The focus of this conference was on multimodal transportation planning evolving from the earlier conferences that had focused on highway planning and the separation between planning and implementation (Highway Research Board, 1973a).
The conference recommended close coordination of planning efforts as a means of achieving orderly development of urban areas and relating the planning process more closely to decisionmaking processes at all levels of government. It urged that urban planning be strengthened through state enabling legislation and bolstered by equitable local representation. Further, citizen participation should occur continually throughout the planning process but should not be considered as a substitute for decisionmaking by elected officials (Advisory Commission, 1974).
All comprehensive and functional planning, including multimodal transportation planning, should be integrated, including the environmental impact assessment process. The planning process should continually refine the long-range regional transportation plan at the sub-area scale and focus on a 5- to l5-year time frame so that planning would be more relevant to programming and project implementation. Transportation planning should consider service levels consistent with local goals, and a wide range of alternatives should be evaluated. The impact of changes in the transportation system should be monitored to improve future decisionmaking and planning efforts (Advisory Commission, 1974).
The conference report went on to urge that this more inclusive kind of planning be supported by flexible funding from the federal government. This was to be done to avoid a preference for any mode so as not to unbalance specific urban transportation decisions contrary to local goals and priorities. The conference also supported additional resources for planning, research and training.
DOT Initiatives Toward Planning Unification
The U.S. Department of Transportation had been working for several years on integrating the individual modal planning programs. In 1971, the DOT established a trial program of intermodal planning in the field. The overall objective of the program was to integrate the modal planning programs at the urban-area level rather than at the federal level. With the successful completion of the trial program, the DOT implemented the program on a permanent basis by establishing intermodal planning groups (IPGs) in each of the 10 DOT regions. The IPGs were charged with responsibility for obtaining and reviewing an annual unified work program for all transportation planning activities in an urban area; for obtaining agreement on a single recipient agency for areawide transportation planning grants in each urban area; and, for obtaining a short-term (3- to 5-year) transportation capital improvement program, updated annually, from each recipient agency (U.S. Dept. of Transportation and U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, 1974).
Also in 1971 a DOT transportation planning committee was established to promote a coordinated department-wide process for urban area and statewide transportation planning and for unified funding of such planning. As a result of the efforts of the committee, a DOT order was issued in 1973 that required that all urbanized areas submit annual unified work programs for all transportation planning activities as a condition for receiving any DOT planning funds. These work programs had to include all transportation-related planning activities, identification of the agency responsible for each activity, and the proposed funding sources. The work programs were used to rationalize planning activities and joint funding under the DOT planning assistance programs (U.S. Dept. of Transportation and U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, 1974).
Process Guidelines for Highway Projects
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 required that guidelines be issued to assure that possible adverse economic, social, and environmental effects were considered in developing highway projects and that decisions on these projects were made in the best overall public interest. Initially guidelines were developed specifying requirements and procedures for evaluating the effects in each of the impact areas. These guidelines were presented and discussed at a Highway Research Board Workshop during July 1971 in Washington, D.C. The primary conclusion of the workshop was that full consideration of adverse impacts and of decisions in the best overall public interest could not be assured by extensive technical standards. It would depend upon the attitudes, capabilities, organization, and procedures of the highway agencies responsible for developing the projects (U.S. Congress, 1972a).
Based on the workshop recommendations and other comments, the emphasis of the guidelines was shifted to the process used in developing highway projects. In September 1972, FHWA issued PPM 90-4, "Process Guidelines (Economic, Social, and Environmental Effects of Highway Projects)" (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1972a). These guidelines required each state to prepare an Action Plan spelling out the organizational arrangement, the assignment of responsibilities, and the procedures to be followed in developing projects in conformance with the law. The Action Plan had to address the process for the identification of social, economic, and environmental impacts, considerations of alternative courses of action, use of a systematic interdisciplinary approach, and the involvement of other agencies and the public. Flexibility was provided to the States to develop procedures which were adjusted to their own needs and conditions.
The use of process guidelines was a further evolution of the manner in which highway projects were developed. The staffs of highway agencies were exposed to the views of other agencies and the public. Professionals with skills in the social and environmental areas were brought into the process. Gradually, the project development process became more open and embraced a broader range of criteria in reaching decisions.
UMTA's External Operating Manual
With the passage of the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970, the federal transit grant program substantially increased from less than $150 million annually before 1970 to over $500 million by 1972 (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1977b). It was anticipated that both the level of funding and number of projects to be administered would further increase. In August 1972 UMTA issued its first consolidated guidance for project management in its External Operating Manual (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1972c).
The External Operating Manual contained general information on UMTA's organization and programs. It provided potential applicants with information on preparing an application for federal assistance, and the statutory criteria and program analysis guidelines UMTA would use in evaluating the applications. It also contained policies and procedures for administering projects.
The manual stated that the near-term objectives that UMTA sought to achieve with the federal transit program were: increasing the mobility of non-drivers, relief of traffic congestion, and improving the quality of the urban environment. These objectives were related to urban areas of three size groups: small areas under 250,000 in population, medium areas between 250,000 and 1,000,000 in population, and large areas over 1 million in population. For small areas, the primary objective was for the mobility of the transit dependent. In addition, for medium areas the use of non-capital intensive (i.e. transportation system management) strategies to reduce traffic congestion was emphasized. Additionally, for large areas, analysis of alternative transportation schemes including non-capital intensive strategies and new technologies was emphasized to support land development patterns (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1972c).
Included as Appendix 2 of the Manual was the Urban Mass Transportation Planning Requirements Guide which set forth the areawide planning requirements for the transit program. These requirements were certified by HUD designed to be consistent with the 3C planning requirements of the FHWA. An urban area needed to have: a legally established planning agency representing local units of government; a comprehensive, continuing areawide planning process; and a land use plan to serve as the basis for determining travel demand.
The transportation planning requirements, which were certified by UMTA, included: a long-range transportation planning process, a 5-10 year transit development program, and a short-range program. The agency conducting the transportation planning was to be, wherever possible, the agency carrying out the comprehensive planning. An area could meet the planning requirements on an interim basis, until July 1, 1972, if it had a planning process underway, but received only a 50 percent federal share for its transit project instead of the two-thirds share if the requirement was fully met.
The External Operating Manual was revised through 1974 but was updated and supplemented in later years with UMTA Circulars, Notices, and regulations (Kret and Mundle, 1982). The planning requirements contained in the Manual were superseded by the joint FHWA/UMTA Urban Transportation Planning regulations (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1975a).
Williamsburg Conference on Urban Travel Forecasting
By the latter part of the 1960s use of the conventional urban travel forecasting procedures pioneered in the late 1950s and early 1960s was widespread but criticism of them was growing. Critics argued that conventional procedures were time-consuming and expensive to operate and required too much data. The procedures had been designed for long-range planning of major facilities and were not suitable for evaluation of the wider range of options that were of interest, such as low-capital options, demand-responsive systems, pricing alternatives, and vehicle restraint schemes. Policy issues and options had changed, but travel demand forecasting techniques had not.
These issues were addressed at a conference on Urban Travel Demand Forecasting held at Williamsburg, Virginia, in December 1972, sponsored by the Highway Research Board and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The conference concluded that there was a need for travel forecasting procedures that were sensitive to the wide range of policy issues and alternatives to be considered, quicker and less costly than conventional methods, more informative and useful to decisionmakers, and in a form that nontechnical people could understand. Further, that improvements in methodology were urgently needed, and that significant improvements in capabilities could be achieved within three years based on the results of available research (Brand and Manheim, 1973).
The conference recommended several simultaneous paths to improve travel forecasting capabilities. First was to upgrade existing methodology with the results of recent research. Second was to pilot test emerging procedures in several urban areas. Third, was research to improve the understanding of travel behavior including before/after studies, consumer theory, psychological theory, and location behavior. Fourth, research was needed to transform the results of travel behavior research into practical forecasting techniques. Fifth, a two-way dissemination program was necessary to get new methods into the field and for the results of these applications to flow back to the researchers to improve the methods (Brand and Manheim, 1973).
The conferees were optimistic that the conversion to new, improved behavioral methods was soon to be at hand. They did recognize that a substantial amount of research was going to be necessary. And in fact the Williamsburg conference did launch a decade of extensive research and activity in disaggregate urban travel demand forecasting.
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 contained two provisions that increased the flexibility in the use of highway funds for urban mass transportation in the spirit of the Mt. Pocono conference. First, federal-aid Urban system funds could be used for capital expenditures on urban mass transportation projects. This provision took effect gradually, but was unrestricted starting in Fiscal Year 1976. Second, funds for Interstate highway projects could be relinquished and replaced by an equivalent amount from the general fund and spent on mass transportation projects in a particular state. The relinquished funds reverted back to the Highway Trust Fund.
This opening up of the Highway Trust Fund for urban mass transportation was a significant breakthrough sought for many years by transit supporters. These changes provided completely new avenues of federal assistance for funding urban mass transportation.
The 1973 act had other provisions related to urban mass transportation. First, it raised the federal matching share for urban mass transportation capital projects from 66-2/3 percent to 80 percent, except for Urban system substitutions, which remain at 70 percent. Second, it raised the level of funds under the UMTA capital grant program by $3 billion, to $6.1 billion. Third, it permitted expenditure of highway funds for bus-related public transportation facilities, including fringe parking on all federal-aid highway systems.
The act called for realigning all federal-aid systems based on functional usage. It authorized expenditures on the new federal-aid Urban system and modified several provisions related to it. "Urban" was defined as any area of 5,000 or more in population. Apportioned funds for the system were earmarked for urban areas of 200,000 or more population. Most important, it changed the relationship between the state and local officials in designating routes for the system. It authorized local officials in urbanized areas to choose routes with the concurrence of state highway departments (Parker, 1977).
Two additional provisions related directly to planning. For the first time urban transportation planning was funded separately: ½ of 1 percent of all federal-aid funds were designated for this purpose and apportioned to the states on the basis of urbanized area population. These funds were to be made available to the metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) that were designated by the states as being responsible for comprehensive transportation planning in urban areas.
The 1973 Federal-Aid Highway Act took a significant step toward integrating and balancing the highway and mass transportation programs. It also increased the role of local officials in the selection of urban highway projects and broadened the scope of transportation planning by MPOs.
Endangered Species Act of 1973
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was enacted to prevent any animal or plant from becoming extinct in the United States. The act prevented the taking of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and the critical habitats where they live. The act applied to the loss of, or injury to, endangered species either directly or indirectly through activities that would interfere with their life support system (Alan M. Voorhees & Assoc., 1979).
Section 4 of the act required the determination of which species were endangered by the Secretary of Interior with regard to wildlife and plants, and the Secretary of Commerce with regard to fish. Section 7 of the act established a consultative process between any Federal agency seeking to carry out a project or action and the appropriate Department (either Interior or Commerce) to determine if there would be an adverse impact on any endangered species. The determination was to be made in the form of a biological opinion based on the best scientific and commercial data available. If the biological opinion found that an endangered species or its habitat was in jeopardy, the act required that reasonable and prudent alternatives be proposed by the Department of Commerce or Interior respectively. Where the Federal agency could not comply with the proposed alternatives, the project or action could not proceed (Ryan and Emerson, 1986).
The 1978 Amendments to the act established the Endangered Species Committee which was authorized to grant exemptions from requirements of the act. This provision was a response to the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold blockage of the completion of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Tellico Dam because it endangered a small fish called the snail darter (Salvesen).
In 1982, the act was again amended to allow for incidental takings of wildlife under certain conditions. For example, development could occur in the habitat of an endangered species if the development mitigated any adverse impacts of the species. This mitigation typically took the form of setting aside part of the site for a wildlife preserve, and by a finding that the development would not appreciably reduce the likelihood of the survival and recovery of the species in the wild (Salvesen).
The Endangered Species Act has been called the most powerful land use law in the nation. By 1990, there were about 500 plant and animal species listed as endangered or threatened in the United States, and with more being added to the list each year. In the future, the act will affect many more development activities.
AASHTO Policy on Geometric Design of Urban Highways
By 1966, the 1957 edition of A Policy on Arterial Highways in Urban Areas had become partially obsolete as a result of the changing demands placed upon the urban transportation system (American Association of State Highway Officials, 1957). The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) (the name was changed in 1973) began a seven year effort to update and considerably expanded this policy. The new edition was reissued as A Policy on Design of Urban Highways and Arterial Streets-1973 (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 1973).
In addition to updated material on highway design, the policy contained two new sections on transportation planning and highway location not previously included in AASHTO policies. The material on transportation planning included a brief review of alternative organizational approaches, elements of an planning process, and steps in the process including data collection, forecasting, evaluation, surveillance and reappraisal. The information closely paralleled the guidance provided by FHWA in PPM 50-9 and IM 50-4-68, and the technical guidance documented in their various manuals on the 3C planning process.
The section on highway location covered social and environmental effects of urban highway developments, community participation, and economic and environmental evaluation. The new material on highway design included design guidance for mass transit especially for buses on arterial streets and freeways. The A Policy on Design of Urban Highways and Arterial Streets-1973 attempted to show that the planning, location and design of a highway were not three distinct independent processes but rather a coordinated effort by planners, locators, and designers.
In 1984, AASHTO issued A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets-1984 which combined updated, and replaced the 1973 urban policy and 1965 rural policy in addition to several others (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 1984). This 1984 edition did not include the material from the 1973 urban policy on transportation planning and highway location but instead referenced it.
1972 and 1974 National Transportation Studies
Although urban transportation planning had been legislatively required for over a decade, the results had not been used in the development of national transportation policy. Beyond that, a composite national picture of these urban transportation plans did not exist even though they were the basis for capital expenditure decisions by the federal government. In the early 1970s, the Department of Transportation conducted two national transportation studies to inventory and assess the current and planned transportation system as viewed by the states and urban areas.
The two studies differed in their emphasis. The 1972 National Transportation Study obtained information on the existing transportation system as of 1970, the transportation needs for the 1970-1990 period, and short-range (1974-1978) and long-range (1979-1990) capital improvement programs under three federal funding assumption (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1972b). The study showed that the total transportation needs of the states and urban areas exceeded the financial resources of the nation to implement them and discussed the use of low-capital alternatives to improve the productivity of the existing transportation system, particularly in urban areas.
The 1974 National Transportation Study related more closely to the ongoing urban transportation planning processes (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1975). It obtained information on the 1972 inventories, long-range plans (1972-1990), and short-range programs (1972-1980) for the transportation system in a more comprehensive manner than did the 1972 study. The transportation system for all three periods was described in terms of the supply of facilities, equipment, and services, travel demand, system performance, social and environmental impacts, and capital and operating costs. Information on low-capital alternatives and new technological systems was also included. The 1972-1980 program was based on a forecast of federal funds that could reasonably be expected to be available and an estimate of state and local funds for the period (Weiner, 1974). This study again demonstrated that the long-range plans were overly ambitious in terms of the financial resources that might be available for transportation. Further, it showed that even after the expenditure of vast amounts of money for urban transportation, urban transportation systems would differ little in character in the foreseeable future (Weiner, 1975b).
The National Transportation Study process introduced the concept of tying state and urban transportation planning into national transportation planning and policy formulation. It stressed multimodal analysis, assessment of a wide range of measures of the transportation system, realistic budget limitations on plans and programs, and increasing the productivity of the existing transportation system. Although these concepts were not new, the National Transportation studies marked the first time that they had been incorporated into such a vast national planning effort (Weiner, 1976a).
National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974
The National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974 authorized for the first time the use of federal funds for transit operating assistance. It thereby continued the trend to broaden the use of federal urban transportation funds and provide state and local officials more flexibility. This act was the culmination of a major lobbying effort by the transit industry and urban interests to secure federal operating assistance for transit.
The act authorized $11.8 billion over a 6-year period. Under the Section 5 Formula Grant program, almost $4 billion was to be allocated to urban areas by a formula based on population and population density. The funds could be used for either capital projects or operating assistance. The funds for areas over 200,000 in population were attributable to those areas. The funds were to be distributed to "designated recipients" jointly agreed to by the governor, local elected officials and operators of publicly-owned mass transportation services. For areas under 200,000 in population, the governor was designated to allocate the funds.
Of the remaining $7.8 billion, $7.3 billion was made available for capital assistance at the discretion of the Secretary of Transportation, under the Section 3 Discretionary Grant program, and the remainder was for rural mass transportation. Funds used for capital projects were to have an 80 percent federal matching share. Operating assistance was to be matched 50 percent by the federal government (U.S. Dept. of Transportation 1976).
Section 105(g) of the act required applicants for transit projects to meet the same planning statute as Section 134 of the highway act. Finally, highway and transit projects were subject to the same long-range planning requirement. Although many urbanized areas already had a joint highway/transit planning process, this section formalized the requirement for multimodal transportation planning.
The act also required transit systems to charge elderly and handicapped persons fares that were half regular fares when they traveled in off-peak hours. This was a further condition to receiving federal funds.
The act created a new Section 15 that required the Department of Transportation to establish a data reporting system for financial and operating information and a uniform system of accounts and records. After July 1978 no grant could be made to any applicant unless they were reporting data under both systems.
PLANPAC and UTPS Batteries of Computer Programs
The computer programs developed and maintained by BPR during the 1960s were essential to most urban transportation planning studies which generally did not have the time and resources to develop their own programs. The battery had been written for most part by the U.S. Bureau of Standards and consisted of 60 single purpose computer programs. Toward the end of the decade of the 1960s, new batteries of computer programs were being developed for transportation planning for the recently introduced third generation of computers, the IBM 360 (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1977a).
The highway planning package, known as PLANPAC, was rewritten to take advantage of the new capabilities of these computers. Most highway agencies were acquiring IBM 360s for their own computer installations and would soon be able to use the new computers. PLANPAC included computer programs to analyze survey data, develop and apply trip generation relationships, calibrate and apply trip distribution models, perform traffic assignment, evaluate networks, and for plotting and utility programs to handle data sets (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1977a).
New programs continued to be written and added to PLANPAC. In 1974 the FHWA completed a reorientation of the package. Many of the programs in PLANPAC that were not associated with the traditional four-step urban travel forecasting process were shifted to BACKPAC. These included computer programs for traffic signal optimization, parking studies, highway capacity analysis, carpool matching, micro traffic analysis, land-use forecasting and freeway management. This resulted in 59 programs being retained in PLANPAC and 244 programs being included in BACKPAC.
A battery of computer programs for transit system planning was also developed during the mid 1960s by the U.S. Department of Housing, and Urban Development which administered the federal transit program at that time. The battery was first written for the IBM 7090/94 computers and consisted of 11 multi-purpose programs. About 1973 UMTA assumed responsibility for the HUD transit planning package and released an enhanced version for the IBM 360 as the UMTA Transportation Planning System (UTPS). The programs were designed for network analysis, travel demand estimation, sketch planning and data manipulation. The programs were compatible and communicated through a common data base.
In 1976 the FHWA decided not to perform any further developments for PLANPAC but instead join with UMTA to support the UTPS package whose name was changed to Urban Transportation Planning System. FHWA did make a commitment to maintain and support PLANPAC as long as users needed it. The first release of the UMTA/FHWA multimodal UTPS was in 1976. A 1979/80 release provided additional capabilities and contained 20 programs.
The development and support of computer programs by FHWA and UMTA substantially assisted urban transportation planning studies in performing their various analytical and planning functions. These computer batteries facilitated the use of conventional planning techniques and furthered this style of urban transportation planning.
