How to Maintain the Unsustainability of Mobility in the Development of Urban Areas? – Example from Slovakia

Abstract

The chapter discusses the experience of traffic engineering analysis and subsequent transport planning as a comprehensive tool for classifying the suitability of transport design solutions in cities. It will also highlight, on the basis of practical experience, the issue of the interventions of various non-profit organisations, whether for the environment or for alternative modes of transport, who will have to interact professionally and systematically when proposing changes or new solutions for serving the built-up area in cities. The issue mainly affects efforts to develop public transport, the prevailing lack of parking, the suppression of dynamic car traffic, especially in favour of cycling, but all from the point of view of the weakest road transport participant, which are the pedestrians. The public spaces are the relevant issue in a whole line and/or cross section point of view of the road/street. The other important task is the complexity and sustainability of the road/street network in urban areas. The principles focus on the systematic development of sustainable transport in terms of serviceability and accessibility. Distance and time for the functions of land use are crucial parameters and not just some fictional vision of aggressive promotion of one mode of transport at the expense of other modes.

1. Introduction

In recent years, the most frequent problems of land use development and its transport infrastructure have most often been related to the requirements of civic and non-profit organisations for project documentation of transport solutions. In the conditions of Slovakia, this is slowly becoming the most serious “problem” for the realisation of any investment in urban areas in the urbanised space for the solutions of transport systems and transport infrastructure. In the conditions of Slovakia, the technical standard for the design of urban roads and its technical regulation have just been updated in 2023 [1, 2]. The traffic-engineering principles that are introduced by the new regulation and the possibilities of complex creative activity of designers will be pointed out.

The main misunderstanding in the development of urban areas on the part of laymen (NGO) is in the basic requirements for the performance of traffic surveys and their processing, and for the area in question in the inevitable need to create a traffic model and its various scenarios as a tool for demonstrating the objectivity and justification of the change in the serviceability of the area. However, this clearly points to fundamental changes in the classification of sustainability of mobility, as it will also need to be demonstrated by measurable parameters in time before and after the changes are made. Examples from existing SUMPs developed in urban settings in Slovakia were used in the analysis. Their content and appropriateness, or shortcomings that develop or violate the principles of comprehensive development of urbanised built-up areas, will be pointed out.

The fundamental problem of “unsustainability” of transport solutions in Slovak cities is the frequent purposeful and unsystematic proposals coming from NGOs and pushing solutions through city councils into the actual implementation of changes in transport infrastructure. Non-professionals always promote imported views as model examples and perspectives or adopt projects from foreign environments into our own territory without knowing the context specific to the particular territory. The aim is to fragment the community living on the land through the many superficial activities of the people who are associated in various associations (non-profit organisations). The aim is usually to promote negativity in the proposed solutions of the authorised engineers with the guidance that we are living badly. Unsystematic solutions hiding behind so-called sustainable mobility solutions are promoted. These solutions are outside the principles of the systematic solutions that are defined in the spatial plans or in their master transport plans. In addition, most of these NGO people do not have the appropriate education for the activities they are criticising and do not want to take responsibility; they just want to dictate subjective demands.

The issue of sustainable mobility has been discussed at several levels in the professional community. We are looking for solutions that respond to sustainable mobility with measurable parameters. These solutions are intended to find answers for the systemic servicing of the built-up area of our cities. The most important thing for us technicians—traffic engineers, planners and urban planners—is to support the requirements for sustainability itself in a measurable way in the meaning of the transport system. This must be addressed through comprehensive transport engineering work and not through subjective declarations in relation to the environment and climate change. Mobility, especially in its expression as a sustainable tool for spatial urban development, rarely refers in its solutions to the essence of people’s need, which is accessibility in the quality of the transport service provided. Urban projects and often urban transport service development strategies must address multi-modal spatial arrangements. It is rarely found in analyses and research how the preferred purposeful mobility will be reflected in the future of people’s lives in the city. In the literature, we can easily divide research on mobility and its sustainability in areas such as:

1. General or comprehensive solutions of principles, in which transport solutions are included by social instruments of urban development in its multimodality [3, 4, 5]

2. Systemic and measurable solutions by improving the quality of service to the built-up area [6, 7, 8]

3. Subjective human parameters most often represented by non-systemic and short-term solutions, point-oriented to expedient local benefits preferring some of the “sustainable” parameters

4. Single-purpose preference for one mode of transport—most often cycling, with the expression of the success of solving climate problems without the essence of a comprehensive assessment of the quality of life in cities.

Many references, for example, can be found in city-wide strategies or agglomeration solutions, for example, [9, 10, 11, 12]. Some research references address descriptively just the subjective issue of human perception of sustainable mobility with a proposal to translate into nationwide regulations as in Refs. [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. However, most of the literature addresses sustainable mobility mainly by preferring cycling or alternative transport with the manifestation of environmental benefits as the only qualified solutions. However, they do not give an answer to the complexity of the multimodality of the built-up area and their parametric assessments, for example, only by the basic variable, which is accessibility. There is no need to cite these. However, in the process of analysing the issues of negative boundary conditions that we are addressing in Slovakia with the necessary and logically necessary expertise of sustainable mobility, we have few comparable examples in the world. These are complex solutions that go through the analysis of the solved built-up areas by traffic surveys, the design of solutions in several scenarios and, above all, their assessment by modelling and capacity calculations. Nevertheless, in the unprofessional level of political declarations, there are examples of cooperation precisely with non-profit organisations. However, these are not professionally oriented rather they are oriented towards short-term political related decisions. However, such solutions do not give an answer as they are reflected in the outlook in the development of the city and do not provide a concrete classified value of mobility as part of the multimodal transport service in the system of the built-up area. Only one type of transport system usually comes to the fore, which usually constrains and comes at the expense of the others.

2. Urban development and comprehensive transport solutions on the wave of climate change

In our Slovak conditions, the land has historically been inhabited for several generations. The knowledge of nature and the reality of living in an urbanised space may not always be ideal, nor will it ever be, but generations of people have built it up from the opportunities available to them from society at the level of the city, region or state. Unfortunately, there are too few people even in the professions who study, seek and find solutions who know the specific details of the spatial layout of the land use in terms of transport services. The principle is that if we do not know our own historical development of land use with its transport infrastructure and its servicing as a complex service, we easily succumb to any foreign solution that must be immediate to save the environment, where expedient proposals are promoted in order to violate the basic principles of the spatial development system or transport servicing. Indeed, it is often the case, rather the rule, that such solutions are proposed on the basis of the point-by-point and myopically subjective demands of activists. It is not customary that the discussion and understanding of the other side (NGO) can argumentatively justify its demands. Moreover, for the most part, a narrow view without analysis is asserted and, in debates, an inability to sustain an idea and an inability to abandon an idea. Often, point solutions are promoted with a false quick win that literally destroys and annihilates the spatial perception of servicing the area. Most often, the transport infrastructure itself is destroyed.

Experts and responsible planners in the complex activity of land use development, where the main solution is the transport and its service to the land space, must modestly state a situation where it is not proven that the current climatic situation is associated with industrial civilisation and the way of life of people in developed countries. Certain ‘experts’ claim that climate change is not a natural anomaly, which is precisely why it must be stopped, not treated as a natural thing. The fundamental question is how are the natural conditions that existed sometime around the 1960s to be maintained? It is suggested that this may be linked to the fact that this is a time interval after the present that has not yet faded from the minds of the ideologues of climate alarmism - climate alarmism that has unfortunately already become a political, mainly lobbyist, agenda. This is a fundamental contradiction between individual human experience (even professional experience), which is very short-term, and the nature of climate change, which is very long-term in nature and causes.

In terms of transport and its solution in the built-up area, sustainable mobility solutions are required. Of course, professionals – traffic engineers and urbanists – are not against it. Usually, every comprehensive technical proposal by engineers ends up being “stomped” by activists that car-oriented solutions are being addressed. These need to be “scrapped”. In terms of land use and its development, the space we live in and our active actions to change it - both positive and negative - cause us various constraints. However, there are often no explicit reasons to fundamentally change regulations, norms, standards and methodologies. It is often argued only verbally, but not professionally, that these are hardships or potential existential threats. Non-profit organisations are often used as a method to approach problems in an unsystematic way to solve them, and to do so while gaining influence over the people - the citizens, in a way that rises to the level of victimhood. People have to give up something that they consider particularly important, valuable and necessary for their current life in order to satisfy their ‘deities’. However, basic measurable parameters are not used. Most often, the basic axiom of ‘divinity’ is used - in our case, the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere is placed on that pedestal. CO₂ has only a 0.76% influence on the overall warming impact.

3. What to do next for transport planning and sustainable mobility?

In our Slovak conditions, the way and structure of planning - both spatial and transport planning – are also changing, with a significant shift from the “strategic” approaches typical of the 70–80s of the last century to the dominance of market forces in the 90s of the last century lasting to this day. But in urban areas, we are seeing a renewed and developed interest in the role that the planning system has in positioning new land development and in the magnitude of limiting the impact of the car on the urban environment. All around us now are sustainability and smart solutions, but no systematic solution. However, there is a lack of comprehensive Smart Solutions (in the Slovak language, it is specifically about “reasonable” solutions) and New Urbanism in which transport proposals are implemented. These are projects that comprehensively address multimodal demand and accessibility in the urban land use.

There are various forms of space planning that do not rely on the long-term strategic development of the city and are supported by detailed analyses based on databases. Today’s methods are simpler, and management is more subtle, often starting with articulating a vision for the city (urban zone). We are now concerned about quality of life and the wide range of employment; social and cultural opportunities significantly influence what a city can offer. This means planning for accessibility for all residents and other newcomers who depend on the city, keeping the local economy vibrant, minimising the negative effects of city life on the environment and offering a wide range of opportunities to participate in the processes of city life. Pausing at this, the professional stated that the effort will be a comprehensive multimodal assessment of the area with a specific proposal. However, we rarely ask in proposals for solutions, what will the demand be and will it change at all? What will be the comprehensive accessibility of people, positively or negatively? Current traffic engineers and planners can act as promoters of change in the city and can play a positive role where progress should be clear, professional and professionally telling in these incremental steps:

• Investigating the basic environment with the tools of theoretical and analytical problems on a specific land use in terms of economy and spatial distribution of functions with an orientation towards mobility. In our perception of the transport service, it involves an analysis of the main modes of transport on the existing transport infrastructure;

• To present the basic theoretical and empirical relationship between transport and the development of the study urban area. This is usually addressed by a transport-capacity assessment of the area;

• Addressing transport in the development of land use by focusing on all modes of transport - rail, road, alternative, pedestrian (the order is not important in this case);

• Joint transport and land development to be provided in overviews and clearly articulated basic assumptions implicitly focusing on the service problems of the area. Everything must be measurably supported so that the technical level of argumentation is not lost. This is most often lacking in the “hard” promotion of alternative modes of transport (cycling and scooters);

• The aim is to determine where the urban land use should move in terms of transport (demand, service, accessibility) from different scientific, cultural and national perspectives, so as to offer capacity transport solutions for the future for the very development of the lives of the generations of people who want to live there.

If we find not only subjective answers (most often only from NGOs) but also solutions from traffic engineers together with urban planners, a richer and deeper discussion can be achieved in solving problems. Here, professionals - engineers, urban planners - must pull the ‘activists’ with patience into understanding the complexity of the issues of land use. It’s not just about their (NGO) point one-point advocacy of their activity (most often pulling in alternative transportation kinds everywhere). Moreover, it should be pointed out that this is the task of professionals and true experts. However, if non-professionals (NGOs) want to take the initiative, they must be held fully accountable! This cannot be solved by NGOs and activists. Third-sector activism will not help on these points. On one fundamental principle because they often solve the situation only on their momentary enthusiasm in a particular project single-mindedly and without responsibility. These people pretend to address sustainable mobility, to “see” climate change, but are never responsible for the actions that are implemented. This is something that every city leadership should take heed of, especially entire city and local councils, which always and everywhere also lack professional knowledge and background and are falsely drawn into action at the level of championing democratic principles. However, the reality is that it is the activities of NGOs that are only minor activists in the spatial arrangement of land use where the traffic problem needs to be addressed comprehensively.

In this view, road (transport) investment will only make a significant difference where the only missing element is a strong economy. That is why in the case of Slovakia, the motorway network is also important (it is a basic infrastructure and not a “superior” one), but somehow, we have not been able to complete it for more than 40 years. On the other hand, there are slumped economies in Western European conurbations where investment in major roads has caused little or no change in the economic outlook. We then take examples from these to Central and Eastern Europe. It is not appropriate, and it is not recommended! However, this does not concern our Slovak specifics at all, even if we already had a completed basic network with all the “former” expressways. Finally, there are cases in which the lack of main road infrastructure does not hinder the performance of the economy. And this is perhaps the hook that the third-sector participants grasp at when discussing each of our new investments. They rarely know how to oppose in a systematic and reasoned way; they put activities on hold and create incredible delays in proceedings.

The draft Multimodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Program also welcomes the activities of amateur people and non-profit organisations into participation, but with one condition, they must have responsibility. And this is unfortunately lacking in Slovak legislation. It needs to be clearly added. No one is against various proposals, but whoever brings “added” value and wants to promote it must have responsibility in the cycle of engineering and administrative activities, even if he is on the “third” side of the issue. It is not the third party (NGO) that sees the issue of the principle of every road and traffic engineer’s solution that we must also look at the time and financial side. If the relevant public administrators and planners have the responsibility, then the non-profit, third-party organisations must have it in a democracy!

A similar framework is also useful for evaluating cases from the field of rail transport in urban space, which forms the main theme of multimodal services in urbanised areas. The main problem for NGOs is cars with their infrastructure (which are according to the NGOs, terrible, bad aspects of the solution), while claiming that alternative modes of transport will solve everything. The true and logical solution to transporting large volumes of residents will never be solved by alternative transportation, especially because of accessibility, and rail is a guarantee of quality transportation to serve the built-up area.

Examining the link between rail investment and economic development is less common than it is for road investment. However, according to [18], the same difficulties in teasing out the specific impacts of rail investments as is the case for road infrastructure investments are pointed out. One of the difficulties of summarising conclusions about the impacts of rail transport investments is that it is a more heterogeneous mode of transport than road transport. However, the wide range of rail transports systems with different purposes and different impacts points to opportunities also in our Slovak context. However, the fundamental question is what the transport demand will be in 2050, and will there be sufficient quality of accessibility by different types of transport systems?

The two main problems - transport/environment and transport/economy - are inevitably interlinked. In fact, we should consider the transport + environment + economy triangle together in the land use with mobility, rather than just considering the above pairs separately. Despite our beliefs about cause and effect, transport will be at the centre of economic/environmental discussions whenever the intention of a transport investment is to improve or maintain economic competitiveness. This is not entirely obvious from the “local squabbles” in local contexts around the world because we cannot “focus” it. We just talk, but more often we shout without reasoning (thinking of the third sector in this statement). Ironically, some public transport investments that can generally be regarded as environmental, such as new urban rail systems, will be regarded by some people as environmentally ‘intrusive’. All we will do, or rather offer, is a new incentive for the third sector to protest. We need to make it clear to them that part of their thinking must also be simply the size of the demand and the quality of accessibility. For us professionals, these are the basic measurable variables that must be addressed in a multimodal way and not in a purposeful way for one mode of transport.

Despite the complexity of these problems, because we cannot name them, focus them, analyse them and propose solutions in a comprehensive - multimodal - way, it is not difficult to agree with the statement that, for each of the two issues discussed above, we are likely to come closest to a clear result: in the promotion of sustainable mobility packages and smart cities, we need to give priority to the promotion of large-scale integrated public transport systems (and, of course, road transport as well).

This leads to the view that we should also give credit to the all-powerful EU: there are important political, institutional and even cultural factors that determine national attitudes and political views on the importance of transport, the environment and the economy. Why, for example, is political discontinuity so necessary here? Why are we unable to use more enlightened approaches (beware, these are strictly measurable and technically oriented) than any other from the NGO side of the proposals? Why, because of any number of beliefs, do other countries believe in public interventions in general? Answers to these questions might help explain what is happening on land use with transportation and classify the constraints it may be running into. Our problem is how to incorporate this into measurable rules, preferably in standards and technical regulations oriented to transport systems in built-up areas.

In our conditions, this approach cannot be adopted, mainly for this reason: we do not have a complete basic transport infrastructure in Slovakia, neither road, nor rail. However, it is important to point out that there is a need to be aware of this, because even now, and it will certainly grow significantly in the future, the non-profit and third “enviro” sector works with this view. The problem in Central and Eastern Europe is that, after the changes in the early 1990s, we have not yet, and this is more than 30 years ago, resolved the disparities in transport solutions, whether nationally or regionally and especially in cities. But into this unresolved issue dragging on from the past we go pushing “sustainable” solutions not knowing the debt of the lack of transport services to the built-up areas from the past.

It was in the changes in the late 1980s that the barriers were removed. Since then, our cities have succumbed to the freedom of movement of private vehicles, while the transport infrastructure defined in all spatial plans has not been developed at all and has not been developed to the present day. In times long past, the development of our lands was dealt with priority given to public transport services. This development was quickly eliminated by the false freedom of the Western world - the use of private cars. And it continues to this day. There are no resources. But why are there none? It has literally ground to a halt and radically stalled. Transport systems have stopped developing altogether. The structure of subsidies from the state budget has changed; competences have been divided into lower levels - region, district, and municipality - without, of course, financial needs and requirements from central sources. Somehow, it has been forgotten at the level of the state - the departments - that the citizens of the state produce taxes. The economic consequence is the liquidation of the state’s natural resources from the primary national resources we had and “thrown away” by privatisation and its monopolisation by global corporations from abroad. Some people were bothered by state monopolisation, but after the “transformation,” they do not mind private monopoly nowadays. With this, many states have lost the natural revenue to develop even “transport” solutions.

We are currently overwhelmed by so-called more sustainable transport systems in the urgent timeframe required by climate change. These are serious obstacles to trying to create something new without a system and defining why we have historically over the last 30 years arrived at where we are today. We are deliberately pursuing ‘brighter tomorrows’ on the principles of liberalism without a gradual and systematic solution based on the past and paying little attention to considerations of forward-looking research on complex sustainable transport solutions, research and visions. We need to know where we are coming from and where we want to go in the development of an urbanised area with good quality transport services and their accessibility. Especially, the third sector of non-profit organisations without responsibility often brings only ad hoc solutions copied from abroad without knowledge of the conditions that are everywhere in the world specific to land use where the quality service of the area is specifically to be addressed. And so, they are significantly starting to drain financial resources. How to systematically define the current situation with the disproportions of our urbanised areas in spatial layout, functional land use, transport service and transport infrastructure? This is a question that activists have not yet, and certainly will not in the future, answer. It is clear that quality land use must address the elements in synergy as:

Spatial arrangement with Transport infrastructure and

Functional use of the land use with Transport services.

These four basic parameters of ‘smart growth’ in built-up areas or ‘sustainable mobility’ in urban areas must be addressed simultaneously and by no means in isolation. We return to the problem of supply and demand in the urban area, which is the basic axiom of the servicing of the urban area and must address the following 4 basic parameters in a cross-cutting and interdependent manner: spatial layout - transport infrastructure - functional use of the land use - transport services. However, this has been very slow to emerge in Slovakia so far. Taken together, we should perceive the long-empty coffers of our cities and municipalities and the minimal support for the development of the urbanised areas from the level of the state, which is only interested in building basic infrastructure (the state cannot afford more, after the elimination of the natural state monopolies that brought resources for even these basic needs for development and servicing the built-up areas for the people who live there and pay taxes to the state). The connection of urbanised area units is not always suitable for the benefit of the municipalities, and moreover, it is oriented only to car traffic. These are our mono-functional zones of construction of family houses, or large mono-functional areas of administration and commercial chains all over Slovakia. In its specialism, this is also true of public transport (suburban bus and long-distance public transport). Cosmetic changes in the railway infrastructure in Slovakia are a real response to this. If we want to maintain a certain level of quality of life of our inhabitants with the world, we must objectively state that the current transport policy as well as the policy of land use development of our society (in the hierarchy of state - region - municipality) is not optimal and has large gaps. This is based on the structure of the national economy as well as the strength of the state’s own economy, which has been hollowed out by the economic devastation of the turn of the millennium.

4. Sustainable mobility as a smart transport

Future economic analysis of the possibilities of sustainable mobility features will be the right way to extend this research based on our work. We encounter a developing literature on the management of innovations such as ‘smart mobility’ [19] and ‘mobility as a service’ [20], but these have not yet incorporated detailed economic analyses with a focus on the long-term development requirements of urbanised areas.

Smart Growth (SG) applies these principles from the street to the regional level [21] (in our conditions in Slovakia, it goes down to the zones). New Urbanism (NU) [22] in our conditions has received increased attention among authorised planners and the general professional public, especially in areas that have experienced conflicts due to uncontrolled development from the early 1990s that persist to this day, in times of privatisation (small or even state). NU’s policies are oriented to meet community development needs and improve community - zoning and environmental goals. However, these need to be defined in terms of “measurable quantities” of transport service and not in terms of general declarations often perceived and promoted in the circle of various non-profit and civic associations. This must be done professionally and with responsibility to the public institutions that are legally responsible and accountable for the land use solution. Their first partners are professionals, authorised traffic engineers and urban planners, who design and, through the state, are also guided by legislation, standards and regulations. They must be created and take into account the responsibility by the state uniformly throughout the whole country, and they must apply to everyone - including activists.

It is not up to the third sector to decide. The NGOs take part in participatory meetings and in project discussions and make proposals. This does not mean that their proposals will be incorporated or implemented. The following basic principles can be stated:

• These organisations - civic and non-profit - have no accountability and have not gone through the basic principles of the current democratic rules, which are elections. If they stay at that level (and they want to stay there), they cannot influence decision-making. They can only offer their subjective suggestions, but these may not be considered in administrative processes and for design works as well.

• The members - most often perceived as activists - are not public and state sector employees who are responsible for fulfilling the laws and relevant norms of the state in implementation (if they were, this would be a contradiction of democratic rules). Gradually, we encounter that activists are valid members of councils, or employees of the administration, or local politicians. If this is the case, they can no longer act as activists but as elected representatives with accountability or as valid civil servants subject to the city (region) leadership and the relevant laws.

• Representatives of these (non-profit) organisations are rarely professionals or experts in the respective activity and do not have the relevant education, practice (references) and experience (these cannot be obtained only by criticism and the will to change the current state of affairs because...). Professionalism can only be acquired by taking responsibility for the activities that one carries out oneself; one must design and implement them. It is only after several projects and years, through which one goes with responsibility also for the professions with which one has to collaborate and form a professional team, that one can gradually acquire a truly critical perspective and, above all, always look for solutions (that is, not one solution) and create.

• In most cases of the world, these people are organised by profession in professional chambers, which have their own laws and under which they must work. Here, in any case, the activists do not fit in. Professionals match the quality of their work and their expertise in design with their authorisation in professional chambers working under the law. Only authorised engineers, architects and relevant professionals with professional competence in other professional chambers and organisations under the act may carry out projects and project documentation.

Unfortunately, we often encounter that projects are developed without the appropriate authorisation and professional competence. In addition, people with other authorisations often come forward and verify professional activities that are not theirs by law. They are rarely checked by the public sector. The staff in public institutions also has professional competence, and they certify or require the completion of projects according to the standards and laws in force in the Slovak Republic.

5. Principles of sustainability of transport solutions

In Slovakia, new standards for the design of motorways, roads and urban roads have been developed over the last two years [1, 2]. For the relevant urban areas’ development, we have tried to translate the experience of the last three decades into standards and specifications for urban road design and transport services. This section will point out how base tools have been prepared and will already be required especially between the public administration side that approves and permits and the designers and engineers who in turn deliver solutions. The intention of the developers of the urban road design standard was that the ‘third sector’, which most often confuses and prolongs the processes, should also understand that if it wants to ‘add value in sustainable mobility’, it also must meet the basic requirements.

5.1 Extent of land use and principles of transport services

The network of local urban roads for motorised and non-motorised transport shall be compatible with urban and traffic engineering transport planning in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. The requirements for collectors, distributor roads, urban service roads and non-motorised local roads shall be combined with regard to dynamic and parking traffic, taking into account the protection of the environment, agricultural and forest land, nature and cultural monuments taking into account the historical parts of cities.

The principles in the new standards identify threshold values for design elements, but do not offer comprehensive solutions, as a unique approach to the problem to be addressed in the context of specific conditions. These are required to achieve optimal design, given the specificity of each project. These conditions are based on the need to analyse (in measurable conditions):

• Comprehensively the extent of the land use concerned.

• Its spatial layout and functional use of the area in terms of built-up area and population density, and

• The quality of transport infrastructure and transport services determined by the basic transport characteristics: accessibility and traffic load in a multimodal sense.

Depending on the traffic volumes and speeds of individual types of traffic, it is necessary to separate:

• Motor traffic from bicycle traffic and pedestrian traffic.

• Public transport from individual transport.

• Through traffic from origin, destination and intra-urban traffic.

• Cycling (alternative – scooters) traffic from pedestrian traffic.

5.2 Transport network and character of the area

The urban layout is divided into seven spatial perception zones, which are used to classify the area served by the means of transport and the transport system. These were used according to [23]. The servicing of land use is classified by transport infrastructure and transport service. The seven life zones (the occurrence of organisms and human society in the conditions that allow their existence) vary according to the level and volume of physical and social characteristics, providing the tools for the movement of inhabitants from a rural to an urban style of life of society. Urban roads with their complex cross-section parameters are completely a public space. Their base disposition as radial, feeder, distribution, service and others from the technical design description are paired with the technical terminology of roads in design according to urban planning principles (like boulevard, alley, etc.). This way, there is no problem between the traffic engineer and the urban planner (architect) as to how the cross-section of the road should look like in the basic concept.

The most ecologically acceptable solution for transport services in the municipality land use are the modes of transport. The basic split-up division of modal split is: pedestrian, public, alternative and personal vehicular transport. When designing local feeder and service roads, conditions shall be created in such a way that public transport (PT) is preferred and has an independent position in the whole process of creating project documentation and conditions are created for its development in space and time. Traffic management elements shall be designed to create a preference for the passage of PT vehicles, and separate lanes for PT shall be used to the greatest extent possible.

When processing the spatial-planning documents and before starting the design work on the design of a local road (LR) or intersection (also in plural), it is necessary to define the initial traffic conditions determining the scope and quality of the proposed solution. The proposed LR or intersection must meet the anticipated traffic conditions in the municipality and its agglomeration for at least 10+ years and for crossings of state and regional roads for 20+ years after the construction is put into operation.

5.3 Assessment of transport requirements in the area

The calculation of traffic demand is carried out based on knowledge of the current state of transport operation (Level of services - LoS) in the area in question by means of traffic surveys, as well as on the basis of knowledge of the characteristics of the new traffic potential resulting from the planned spatial development of the site in question. The traffic surveys shall be targeted to the area, route or intersection to be addressed. The definition of the size of the study area with adjacent local roads and intersections shall be determined by the municipality.

The municipality determines the extent of the area (example on Figure 1) and the network of local roads with intersections based on the valid land use master plan and the upcoming constructions in the vicinity of the addressed area (example on Figure 2). For crossings of state and regional roads inside of urban areas, the extent of intersections within the line of that road is also determined by the municipality. Depending on the size of the investment and the number of new road connections to the crossings of state and regional roads, the extent within the line shall be extended to the nearest adjacent intersections.

Figure 1.

Example of the extent of urban area with developments (Bratislava - Vajnory) [24].

Figure 2.

Definition of the base road network for zone 1 [24].

5.4 Traffic modelling and scenarios

Traffic model scenarios are created from urban disposition of zones to transport network connections (Figure 3). The traffic model must be developed for at least the AM and PM peak hour periods. Details are published in [25] (example of creating the traffic model, Figure 4):

• The current condition – the year of traffic survey conducted (Example Figures 5 and 6),

• The year of investment opening (day before and day after the opening - this is to demonstrate potential intersection capacity issues), and

• A forward-looking period of +10, +20 years from investment opening as per the function class of local road (example Figure 7).

Figure 3.

Example of the distribution of zonal activities on the road infrastructure for the city borough Bratislava – Vajnory (blue arrows are the connectors from the centroid of the zones to the street in model. One zone has a possibility to connect more streets) [24].

Figure 4.

Example of traffic model output – Scenario perspective of new investment loads – in Bratislava – Bory zone of AM peak hour, 2023. Violet colour - new traffic from investments, blue – Base traffic.

Figure 5.

Example of traffic volume on the street/road for the tracking period of the studied area [26].

Figure 6.

Example of daily traffic volume on the urban road for the tracking period [26].

Figure 7.

Example of the traffic model of the city borough Bratislava - Vajnory with new developments [24].

The capacity and throughput traffic of the defined street network and intersections are then assessed against the relevant standards [1] and specifications [27].

The traffic model consists of:

• Defining the project and the scope of functions (land use, local roads, calculation of new parking capacities, etc.) – with an example of the traffic model;

• Calculating peak hour volumes of origin, destination and through traffic for each function according to a typical daily pattern (example Figure 7);

• Assigning the calculated volumes of origin, destination and through traffic to the proposed road network;

• Traffic-capacity assessment of intersections according to the relevant technical requirements (Example Figures 8 and 9) [27];

• Intersectional road sections (between junctions) – their cross-section arrangement;

• Evaluation of the traffic-capacity assessment – time delays and length of queues at individual entrances to the junction.

Figure 8.

Graphical example from capacity assessment - evaluated junction output. Peak hour AM Base traffic – Blue colour, new traffic – Red colour peak hour PM.

Figure 9.

Example of traffic volume output on the entry and exit of one of the arms of an intersection – Splitting up the traffic flows from each connecting streets on junction [26].

The results of the traffic modelling will enable to:

• Verify the presented documents and information on the level and quality of dynamic and static traffic congestion by the planned investment;

• Evaluate the proposed technical solutions to optimise the accessibility of the planned investment by all available modes of transport (public, dynamic, cycling, pedestrian, parking) – example of PT Tramway mobility in Figure 10;

• Analyse the changing of modal split in favour of PT or alternative transport and away from car passenger transport;

• Assess variable scenarios to serve the new area, with proposed stop locations examined by optimising for accessibility in the new developed area (Figure 11). An example of an accessibility analysis of bus stops is in [28, 29];

• Analyse the technical alignment of the tram line with the values of passenger boardings per 24 h, together with an analysis of the turnover of alighting and boarding passengers at the stops (Figure 12). A comprehensive agenda of transport planning and traffic engineering works is presented in [24];

• Propose a solution that does not deteriorate but stabilises and/or improves the existing mobility service of the area for pedestrian, PT and cycling traffic;

• Propose a solution to optimise the provision of accessibility to the area concerned by the planned investment;

• Propose the phasing of the preparation, the necessary measures and all related activities;

• Assess the degree of congestion on the transport networks caused by the planned investment, and draw the appropriate conclusions.

Figure 10.

Example of the resulting public transport solution for new tramway lines around the new Centre in Bratislava [26].

Figure 11.

Example of the output to serve the new area by tramway (according to Figure 7), with proposed stop locations examined by optimising for accessibility in the area.

Figure 12.

Example of the different scenarios of traffic PT model in servicing the area by tramway of the new Centre of Bratislava (passengers/24 h on stops) - detail to Figure 10.

All these parameters are measurable, not subjective to the will of the “other sides” needs. The empirical experiences are published in [30].

5.5 Traffic capacity assessment and level of service

The traffic capacity assessment (TCA) of investment projects is an integral part of the documentation of their road transport solutions, depending on the type of project documentation. The aim of the capacity assessment is to demonstrate that the solution proposed in the investment project documentation is satisfactory from a capacity point of view. The solution of the other transport segments (public, cycling, pedestrian) is, like the car transport segment, a mandatory part of the investment project documentation. Their scope of assessment is determined by the municipality. The calculation and presentation of the results shall include all relevant values according to [27] and shall be rounded to whole numbers. The form of the outputs is not prescribed. The assessment of the results of the TCA shall be carried out by the administrative body.

In the conditions of Slovakia, the capacity assessment of road transport infrastructure is carried out by calculation. Very popular micro simulations can only be an additional presentation of the calculation, as a graphical 3D output. Very often has it happened that engineers have provided only micro simulations without supporting calculations, which often modify the micro simulations to make the project be perceived positively. This applies to the design of motorways, roads as well as local roads.

The Level of traffic service of the built-up area expressed by the traffic load does not depend on one parameter but on a whole set of parameters of the local road and its facilities in the spatial arrangement of the local road network. It is determined, of course, by the Level of service (LoS), which is the basic criterion of the quality of service offered on the road. It is defined in terms of the quality of vehicle and pedestrian movement offered or the possibility of access to an area served by several modes of transport simultaneously.

The ability of a local road to carry the traffic load (in terms of the number of motor vehicles and other modes of traffic) is assessed at:

• Local road sections between junctions and

• Junctions.

In the street space (public space) for multimodal servicing of land use, it is also required to assess the LoS of pedestrian traffic, cycling and public space at the corners of junctions and at PT stops and PT nodes.

In the development of the strategic documents of the municipality and the city, a functional level of service of the multimodal transport service must be carried out, which establishes the principles of sustainable mobility for the development of the city’s transport system. The basic parameters shall be determined for:

• Pedestrians, public transport passengers and cyclists due to longer journeys from origin to destination expressed in terms of dwell time;

• Motor car traffic congestion expressed in terms of saturation of traffic flows on the local road network;

• Inadequate facilities for each mode of transport.

This analysis measures the potential benefits of changes to the transport system for prioritising development in the area. So, in this way, we can define sustainable mobility and smart city solutions for the complexity of citizen’s life.

6. Conclusion

The research presented in this chapter is the result of several years of work by planners and traffic engineers who analyse and develop urban areas with multimodal transport according to the above-mentioned projections. Dozens of “battles” are fought each time between experts on the one hand and activists on the other. The role of the professionals is not only as a right hand of developers but also on the side of municipalities as well. The professional work demonstrates, first of all, the measurability of the issue and its evaluation and assessment of several options in urban areas. The automatic criticism of activists against every solution and proposal in any public or private sector project is almost a rule. The fundamental problem are the immeasurable demands of non-profit civic associations and their unsystematic proposals that violate the principles of comprehensive urban development of land use with a multimodal view of servicing. The base task is how to change the tremendous destruction of modal split in Slovakia, which demonstrates exploitation on the side of private car usage. There is often a misunderstanding of the principle of the use of complementary resources, which one chooses in terms of accessibility between the origin and destination of each activity on the urban area. Distance and time are the decisive parameters and not a false will based on the promotion of one mode of transport over another. The systematiic solution lies in the amplification of knowledge, where opportunities for changes in the modal split need to be demonstrated in a measurable way. Only then, with appropriate engineering tools, as outlined in this chapter, can we start to change people’s mobility behaviour. The solution appears to be part of integrated transport services, with a focus on public transport with the ability to run regular all-day mobility problems in an urbanised area rather than just covering peak hours. This technical-engineering analysis is a review of 10 years of work by traffic engineers and planners to maintain a clear system approach and solutions with developers and municipalities, which eventually translated into basic principles in a new standard for the design of urban roads in the conditions of Slovakia. However, the open question is how we will be able to transfer this to activists and NGOs, which constantly and always remain without responsibility in the processes. And this is really a problem in the context of the immeasurability of so-called democratic principles in societies almost all over the world.