The Methodology of Urban Transport Corridors Evaluation

The development of the transport system in cities requires very high investment costs and well-verified assumptions of transportation policy. The undertaken decision will affect the effectiveness of the whole transport system and of travel behaviour of inhabitants. This paper contains easy procedures suggested to verify the effectiveness of transport investment through an ex ante and ex post of the investment. The presented method assumes that the travel time measurements are carried out by observers equipped with GPS receivers, moving inside the selected urban public and individual transport vehicles. The results of the measurements are the basis for determining the travel times of the entire transportation corridor as well as its individual sections. Additional measurements include the registration of traffic volumes and saturation of urban public and individual transport vehicles in selected points of the transport corridor. The comparisons are based on the results of measurements, including travel times and saturation of public and individual transport vehicles. Not only average values were taken into consideration, but also standard deviations from travel times. To emphasize the objectivity of the evaluation process, statistical significance tests were proposed. This paper also presents an example of using the method to evaluate the effectiveness of traffic control system, ensuring priority for trams on one of the transportation corridors in Cracow, Poland.