A Transportation Ecology Model-Conceptual Developments

Many facets of the transportation picture have not been coordinated into a single interdependent model even though the long-range planning efforts of transportation systems could benefit from such an effort. The many aspects of transportation-related problems make coordinated approaches important to a critical examination of these problems. Four major sectors of the transportation ecology require this coordination effort: the transportation system design sector, the economic sector, the environmental sector, and the energy supply sector. Currently there is a growing base of crises in each of these sectors of the transportation ecology. This paper puts forth a conceptual foundation for a general transportation ecology model (a model representing the functional environment of transportation systems). The empirical and theoretical considerations necessary for the foundations, as well as the expectations of the model concept, are explored.