Sustainability, collaboration and state-of-good-repair needs are shaping transportation designs, with less emphasis on expansion and more on enhancing existing capacity. Disruptive technologies, particularly connected vehicles and drones, continue to pose challenges to planners of all transportation modes.
“We have a big trend that is happening: significant innovation-driven change,” says William Baumgardner, leader of intelligent mobility for Arup. “It is creating uncertainty for infrastructure planning that we’ve never dealt with before. We have to think through a phasing strategy that is flexible enough to respond to uncertainty.”