News

Contemporary urban transport planning is a highly complex subject, and must take into account up-to-date knowledge from a large number of related disciplines, including environmental planning, energy efficiency, gender issues, safety studies, and climate change.

To help practitioners in developing countries better incorporate these new challenges into their planning programs, ESMAP has teamed with the World Bank’s Transport Anchor, the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), and World Bank regional teams to create a capacity building program, “Leaders in Urban Transport Planning.”

The program seeks to develop capacities for understanding these new linkages between disciplines to support improved urban transport planning in a comprehensive and holistic manner. The target group for such a program is senior policy makers and planners in cities, provincial governments and national governments.

Given the learning preferences of such a group, the program uses a case study and action learning approach rather than a lecture based approach. It also has a self study phase that precedes the case study and action learning phase, where basic issues are highlighted in a series of easy-to-read and simple self study material. The self study material is broken out into 24 modules, divided across 7 thematic clusters.

The first international training event under this program was held in Singapore on January 15-21, 2012, in conjunction with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) Academy. Over 60 participants from 13 countries ranging from Mexico to South Africa, and India to Vietnam, attended the workshop, which was supported by ESMAP, PPIAF, and AusAID. The participants - who included transport administrators and planners from national, provincial and city governments - reviewed case studies from around the region, including Singapore, New Delhi, Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City. Other sessions looked at the intersection between land use and transport planning, the management of transit corridors, and the integration of transport systems and services.

The next stages of the program are now being planned, with future training sessions slated to take place in 2012 in India, France and Argentina.

Resources

Watch the video: Building Leaders in Urban Transport Planning Program