Research Agenda for the 21st Century

摘要

As noted in the Conference on Refocusing Planning for the 21st Century (hereafter referred to as the refocusing conference), held in Washington, D.C., much has changed over the 40 years that we have been holding such conferences. Not only are the types of issues different, but the technology of planning has evolved so rapidly that we are now contemplating analyses at the microscale of the individual traveler. Only 10 years ago these analyses would have appeared like something out of "Buck Rogers." As I pointed out in my background paper for the refocusing conference, the future could hold even more challenges for the planning profession. This paper describes a framework for a research agenda on refocusing transportation planning for the 21st century. This is truly a daunting task given the diversity of interests and needs that are represented by those who plan and by those who (we hope) use the results of this planning. The results of the refocusing conference serve as the basic point-of-depar-ture for this agenda, but the proposed research framework is designed to allow constant revisions to the agenda to reflect changing societal and technological contexts, many of which we cannot even imagine today. This flexibility, after all, is one of the important characteristics of a successful research program.