An integrated transportation decision support system for transportation policy decisions: The case of Turkey

From the point of view of the feasibility of providing growth in road capacity parallel to the predicted growth in traffic as well in terms of impact on the environment and health, current trends in transportation are unsustainable. Transport problems are expected to worsen due to the fact that worldwide automobile ownership tripled between 1970 and 2000, and the movement of goods is projected to increase by 50% by 2010. Similar trends can be seen in an even more dramatic way in Turkey. The Turkish transport network has not followed a planned growth strategy, due to political factors. There is no transportation master plan which aims to integrate the transport modes in order to provide a balanced, multimodal system. This study proposes a decision support system that guides transportation policy makers in their future strategic decisions and facilitates analysis of the possible consequences of a specific policy on changing the share of transportation modes for both passenger and freight transportation. For this purpose, based on the wide spectrum of critical issues encountered in the transportation sector, several scenarios have been built and analysed. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.