city ​​traffic

This article describes urban passenger and freight transport. For the specialist magazine, see Stadtverkehr (magazine) .

City traffic is the inner-city passenger and freight traffic . A distinction is usually only made between private transport and public transport ( city ​​transport becomes public transport in the city area). The prerequisite is the existence of an urban infrastructure .

Infrastructure

• Road network
  • Arterial roads as a link to the region, city ​​motorway , bypass roads ,
  • Main streets , thoroughfares, residential streets (area), traffic-calmed zone,
  • Traffic routes: bicycle traffic facilities , bicycle streets , play street .
• Sidewalk , bridle path .
• Railways
  • within the street ( tram ) or parallel to the street,
  • own ways at street level or own level (above / below the street).
• Waterways : rivers , lakes , canals , canals ,
• Tunnels and underpasses , cutting and elevated railways .
• Parking facilities ( multi-storey car parks , parking spaces , short-term parking zones ).

Modes of transport

Private transport

Car and truck traffic in particular determine the appearance of cities and life in cities. The discussion is therefore about bans and tolls for individual traffic in the city centers. The prerequisite for this is a very well developed network of public transport. City traffic shows a very diverse picture:

• Cars , trucks , motorcycles , bicycles , disabled vehicles , (electric) wheelchairs , horses, carriages, children's vehicles, skateboards , (motor) boats, rickshaws , pedestrians .
• Rush hour traffic, school, student, kindergarten traffic, visiting, social traffic, shopping trips, leisure, cultural, excursion, tourist trips.
• Transport and delivery traffic

Combined transport

Park-and-ride , park-and-rail and bike-and-ride ( bicycle parking spaces or parking garages at stops ) combine individual and public transport . They also serve to connect the region to the city center. The walk to the bus or train stop in the large: Arrival by bike, car. A special form is kiss-and-ride . Park and Rail connects urban traffic with other, even more distant cities or regions or central airports .

Local public transport (ÖPNV)

A distinction must be made between means of transport with their own routes (especially railways) and those that use public routes (roads, rivers). Public transport can shape the cityscape: the subway silhouette at the port of Hamburg , the Wuppertal suspension railway , double-decker buses , extensive railway systems and bridges.

• Subway , light rail , tram (tram, MetroTram in Berlin ), city ​​bus ( Metrobus , regular bus, bus ), express bus , trolleybus , taxi , dial-a-bus , shared taxi .
• City express train ( S-Bahn ) as a link to regional traffic . Regional trains ( Regionalbahn RB, Regionalexpress RE) and regional buses can also take on tasks in city traffic.
• Special means of transport: funicular or suspension railways (e.g. Nerobergbahn Wiesbaden), public elevators (e.g. Schlossberglift in Graz ), ferries , harbor ferries, shipping lines, rickshaws .
• Other means of transport: school bus, works bus, disabled bus, tourist route.

Other passenger transport

• Carpooling , ambulance transport,
• Occasional and excursion services from city tours to party trams.

Local public freight transport

Today, the term “public transport” almost exclusively refers to (local) public transport (ÖPNV). Public freight transport is only used for rail freight transport. Goods transport in the city is also the (mostly underground) transport in pipe systems and the like. the like (water, electricity, gas supply and special delivery systems). Publicly organized local freight transport is only in a discussion phase (newly developed transport systems, distribution centers / reloading stations for the shared use of transport capacities and the bundling of truck traffic: a few full trucks instead of many empty trucks into the city center). (See also city ​​logistics )

Freight traffic as normal goods circulation from the container to the supermarket, from the consumer to the waste disposal:

• Post and parcel services ,
• Forwarding and delivery traffic,
• Construction site traffic,
• Disposal, recycling , garbage trucks.

Emergency supply, rescue and security transport

Transport in the service of the general public. Dependent on the functioning of the urban infrastructure.

• Maintenance vehicles for public utilities,
• Emergency vehicles, fire brigade , emergency supplies
• Police , security services .

Control of traffic flows

A constantly increasing technical and electronic effort with cameras, traffic control centers, satellite monitoring is inevitable for the smooth functioning of city traffic.

• Bundling into main traffic routes,
• Traffic flow and regulation (traffic lights, roundabouts , green wave ).
• Traffic and parking guidance systems , traffic radio , computer and satellite-based route planners .
• Public transport: management of passenger flows on high-performance main lines (subway, light rail, MetroTram).

National

Austria

In Austria, public transport, which  is regulated nationwide in the Public Local and Regional Transport Act 1999 (ÖPNRV-G), is explicitly regarded as local transport for urban areas , while rural areas are subsumed under regional transport . In Austria there is no city that is not surrounded by a green belt, even Vienna still breaks off quite abruptly within the city limits into agricultural zones and forests. In the few urban conurbations, such as along the thermal line south of Vienna, in the Upper Austrian central area , Salzburg Basin , Tyrolean Inntal , Vorarlberg Rhine Valley , Klagenfurt Basin , the urban catchment areas only overlap in linear fashion along the rivers or traffic axes.

In road traffic, there has been a clear demarcation of local / regional traffic since the transfer of the former federal roads (B-numbering retained) to state administration with these and the municipal roads , and in contrast to the motorways / expressways still under federal administration and the designated European roads to long-distance traffic , whereby in the few large cities of Austria the motorways or expressways also play an important role as city ​​motorways .

As a result, local and regional traffic, i.e. local and rural traffic, are considered together, traffic planning today takes place consistently in the context of a central location and within the framework of municipal associations . The transport associations have been set up for each federal state since 2007 at the latest (making Austria the first country in the world to have area-wide clocking and tariff systems that encompass all public transport systems); there is no fundamental distinction here between urban-rural transport and other transport sectors.

literature

• European Commission: Commission Green Paper on Urban Transport , COM (2007) 551 ( pdf , article , both cep.eu).

Web links

• Internet platform mobility 21
• Energy saving and renewable energy portal: City logistics
• ELTIS - European Local Transport Information System

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Under transport for the purposes of this Federal Law services are to be understood and to meet the transport needs within an urban area (urban transport) or between a city and the surrounding areas (suburbs traffic)." § 2 para 2 Public Personennah- and Regional Traffic Act 1999, StF: BGBl. I No. 204/1999 (as amended ris.bka )
2. ↑ Local transport. In: Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology. Retrieved January 18, 2012 .