Evaluation of the Aesthetic Impact of Urban Mass Transportation Systems

摘要

Visual nuisance is one of the environmental consequences caused by the operation of an urban mass transportation system and especially that of a surface system, such as a tramway and a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), or that of an elevated system, such as a monorail. It constitutes a design and construction parameter of the system and it entails the system's aesthetics as a whole. It is of interest to the system's users but mainly to all the residents of the urban area that the system will be running through. By studying the current approaches for evaluating visual nuisance as is conducted in large transport projects today, a lack of an objective evaluation method can be observed. This paper presents a relatively objective and numerical method for evaluating the visual nuisance caused by each of these three transportation systems. The methodology proposed is based on assigning points to each of the different structural elements of these systems and then evaluating the entire system based on its overall score. The findings of this research may be applied during the bidding process for or at the design stage of a new system, at the evaluation of an existing system, or finally for the evaluation of corrective interventions aimed at upgrading an existing system.