Carey Curtis

University of Melbourne | MSD · Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Through an examination of transport planning in Australia, this book challenges conventional wisdom by showing, through original research, how 'car dependence' is as much an institutional as a technical phenomenon. The authors' case studies in three metropolitan cities show how transport policy has become institutionally fixated on a path dominated...

Bringing together a comparative analysis of the accessibility by public transport of 23 cities spanning four continents, this book provides a "hands-on" introduction to the evolution, rationale and effectiveness of a new generation of accessibility planning tools that have emerged since the mid-2000s. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urb...

There has been a rapid rise in papers modelling the impacts of autonomous vehicles. Drawing on a review of this literature, we analyse and discuss the messages conveyed by these studies from a policy-making perspective. An overview of the studies is provided to highlight the different policy frames. We consider the roles that modelling knowledge sh...

Exploring the need for a sustainable transport paradigm, which has been sought after by local and national authorities internationally over the last 30 years, this illuminating and timely Handbook offers insights into how this can be secured more broadly and what it may involve, as well as the challenges that the sustainable transport approach face...

This paper highlights the extent to which a future mobility system dominated by Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) poses profound challenges to the ‘publicness’ of the transport and mobility systems of many cities. This is evident at different policy levels: the regulatory posture of governments, changing notions of the contributions of mobil...

The potential for residents of smaller urban and rural areas to benefit from sustainable accessibility is an under-researched area. This paper explores accessibility to important every-day amenities within short travel times and how this differs across geography and mode of travel. The analysis draws on a combination of novel open-source data of th...

This research explores how Australian urban transport programs and policies are responding to changes in transport technology, travel patterns, environmental imperatives and spatial development dynamics in order to offer guidance about future directions and options, and seeks to identify potential policy directions for Australia’s cities and policy...

There is extensive theorisation and knowledge of innovation systems internationally; however, the application of this knowledge to urban transport issues is less developed. • Innovations are occurring in urban transport systems internationally across multiple domains, including technological advances as well as policy and institutional development....

This paper explores the mental-models of Swedish planners in order to understand the extent to which they support the ideals of sustainable transport. Focussing on three critical challenges: forecast-led versus vision-led planning; tackling congestion; and, public acceptability; the findings, drawn from in-depth interviews, demonstrate mostly advan...

Governments globally have endorsed Vision Zero, declaring that no person should be killed or permanently injured on public roads. Concurrently, the wider social, public health, and environmental implications of urban structure and transport choices have gained intense policy attention, as cities aim to transition toward sustainable accessibility. T...

Every-day mobility anecdotes provide in-depth insights into, and a deeper connection with, the complex reality of how mobility practices are conceived and perceived in a way that more aggregated research approaches overlook in their quest for the summary of travel patterns. Drawing on a study conducted between 2017 and 2019, this article proposes t...

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are widely expected to improve travel opportunities for older people. However, despite an established body of knowledge regarding the factors that influence personal mobility as people age, there has been limited assessment of how AVs might interact with these factors. The potential for driverless cars to pose adverse impa...

Since 1978, when China embarked on a new period of economic reforms and introduced open door policies, it has experienced a great urban transformation. The role of transport has proved indispensable in this unprecedented rapid urbanisation and economic growth. As the first research-focused book dedicated to this important topic, the Handbook on Tr...

Planning for freight presents a perpetual challenge for governments. Understanding freight flows has attracted increasing research attention, though such knowledge can be difficult to translate to address problems in planning practice. This paper critically assesses the challenges of understanding and planning for urban freight movement, especially...

Decisions taken on transport infrastructure and urban form often rely upon conventional urban models and their interface with Cost-Benefit Analysis. Such positivist methods typically conceal the full complexity and uncertainty of how large projects can transform cities. Recent years have seen the emergence of new, more participatory planning Decisi...

Questions about how to plan and govern for future urban mobility are reaching a critical point as Australian cities are faced with disruption to transport and urban systems arising from new forms of shared mobility services and the rise of autonomous vehicles. An industry engagement workshop, drawing on the insights of participants from public and...

The concept of accessibility offers a valuable professional language to bring stakeholders together in urban strategy-making settings. Most of the recently developed accessibility instruments that aim to do this suffer from low usability. One reason for this is the persisting disconnect between instrument developers and the potential users. Buildin...

Urban transport investment decision-making has relied on traditional modelling tools that forecast travel demand based on existing travel patterns. This approach has also underpinned decisions about future urban development. Latent travel demand is poorly understood, and this is particularly important given policy aspirations for the take-up of mor...

Activity Corridors have emerged as one redevelopment form for accommodating growth within dispersed, car-centric cities. This has seen a new interest in the form and function of urban arterial roads. Efforts to increase development intensity in established suburbia, however, are often highly contentious among local stakeholders. It is unclear wheth...

Freight generation and movement patterns are not well understood by planners and policy-makers tasked with making complex strategic land use and transport planning decisions. In the absence of detailed planning evidence, they may rely on scant or anecdotal data, extrapolated and presented through complex quantitative models. Unfortunately, predicti...

New models of shared work spaces have the potential to disrupt planning for traditional employment spaces. Drawing on a pilot study of Greater Perth and regional Western Australia, relevant planning policies and interviews with a sample of managers and users of shared work spaces are reported. Shared work spaces are emerging in regulatory voids lef...

AV technologies have the potential to transform urban landscapes and existing transport systems and networks. Yet, the utopian imaginary of reduced automobile ownership and a new shared economic future sits in tension with suggestions that car dependency, urban sprawl and transport inaccessibility will be exacerbated. The issues are situated in a c...

Digital mapping tools, and the "map mashups" they enable, may facilitate new and richer discourses about salient planning issues, particularly among stakeholders without specific expertise in geospatial technologies (Batty et al., 2010). In October 2016, the authors hosted a day-long workshop for transport and land use planning decision-makers from...

City planning in Australian cities has seen a gradual shift in approach, away from planning to facilitate mobility by car in the post-war period toward planning for land-use/public transport integration. By assessing the supply of public transport for city accessibility, a considerable variation within each city can be seen. Of interest is the exte...

This article reviews the literature on current “best practice” principles for planning public transport (PT) networks within the context of planners seeking to transition their cities toward sustainable mobility. An overview is provided of the history of ideas about network development. The emerging frontiers for multimodal, demand-responsive PT an...

Children’s neighborhood spaces have the potential to enhance their wellbeing by affording active and independent travel. Drawing on a case study of 49 children aged between 9 and 13, living in a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, this study adopts a capability approach to understand how children’s travel in the neighborhood environment supports th...

A transit oriented development (TOD) approach for Perth, Western Australia has been employed as one means of reducing car dependency. Planning for Subiaco Station precinct, one of the first Perth TOD precincts, commenced two decades ago. Drawing on a resident survey, an analysis of the extent that TOD has influenced transport mode choice is provide...

Australian cities have observed a “consensus turn” expressed as broad public support of greater accessibility and public transport provision as revealed in metropolitan strategic plans. In contrast large-scale road projects proposed to traverse the inner-city of three major Australian cities reveals an ongoing and deep-seated attachment by some to...

There is a growing recognition by city policymakers that urban public transport systems can be developed in such a way that travelers can be offered an alternative to car-based travel. How to evolve the public transport system for this purpose is a significant challenge and raises questions of accessibility and quality largely absent from current p...

As in most Australasian cities, Melbourne’s public transport system has a strong radial orientation and despite the introduction of orbital SmartBus routes, displays weaknesses in facilitating cross-suburban travel. This is true for outer, middle and inner suburbs. Some intensifying CBD fringe areas also suffer from missing public transport links i...

Planning for transport is not simply about keeping vehicles moving and providing road space accordingly. There is also a need to have regard to ‘place’. In this chapter, section 2 discusses the role of traffic function and place function in the transport planning process, mapping the dominance of traffic function since the 1960s and the emergence o...

Accessibility instruments can play a valuable role in urban planning practice by providing a practical framework for exploring and testing relationships between land use and transport infrastructure. Despite many available accessibility instruments, they are still not widely used in planning practice. This paper explores the background of this prob...

The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool has been employed to quantify and visualise public transport accessibility in metropolitan Melbourne on a regular basis since 2008. Across a four-stage time line (2008-2014 in biannual steps), it documents changes associated with network expansion and service upgrade...

Built environment audits, part of the “toolbox” for planning multi-modal urban transport systems, are used to evaluate the walkability of streets. Whereas the methodological features of audits have attracted attention from planning research, little attention has been paid to the institutional contexts where audits are developed and used. Drawing on...

This study investigated changes in Australian children’s independent mobility levels between1991 and 2012. Data from five cross-sectional studies conducted in 1991, 1993, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were analysed. Parent and child surveys were used to assess parental licences for independent mobility and actual independent mobility behaviour in children ag...

The decline in children's active travel has significant implications for urban planning and sustainable mobility. This research explores the influence of built environment on children's travel to school across a range of typical urban environments in Australia. The analysis draws on a sample of children and their parents from nine primary schools a...

There is a growing recognition by city policymakers that urban public transport systems can be developed in such a way that travelers can be offered an alternative to car-based travel. How to evolve the public transport system for this purpose is a significant challenge and raises questions of accessibility and quality largely absent from current p...

This paper reports on a research study that investigated the travel behaviour of residents in three case study station precincts located along a new railway in Perth, Western Australia. The precincts were selected for comparison, representing the different development opportunities ranging from planned transit-oriented development (TOD) to station...

This paper reports on a research study that investigated the travel behaviour of residents in three case study station precincts located along a new railway in Perth, Western Australia. The precincts were selected for comparison, representing the different development opportunities ranging from planned transit-oriented development (TOD) to station...

Deliberative engagement is changing strategic planning processes. However, the political nature of plan-making, particularly as embedded in institutional structures and processes, can suppress deliberative processes. Drawing on two plan-making processes in Perth, this paper argues that deliberative engagement can be a step-change towards unifying s...

There is growing recognition by all tiers of government that transformation of the public transport system is necessary if it is to offer a real alternative to car-based travel in Australasian cities. City planning framed around public transport accessibility raises the question of what quality of public transport system can deliver this objective....

Australian metropolitan planning strategies are focused on more intensive use of existing land in order to stem urban expansion and improve accessibility by public transport. New accessibility tools offer the possibility to guide these policy changes, overcoming restrictions to policy innovation associated with traditional transport planning practi...

Active modes of transport for children, such as walking and cycling, have been linked to increased well-being through better health, social connectedness and independence. In order to plan, design and adapt built environments for more active travel to schools, planners require indications of how supportive urban environments are for walking and cyc...

This paper examines the extent to which different town planning approaches succeed in implementing transit-oriented development (TOD). Of particular interest is the articulation of town planning policy through to implementation of development change on land around railway stations. A series of investigations include policy analysis and development...

Unlabelled: Health benefits from children's independent mobility and active travel beyond school travel are largely unexplored. Objectives: This review synthesized the evidence for associations of independent mobility and active travel to various destinations with physical activity, sedentary behaviour and weight status. Design: Systematic rev...

Cities are seeking to reduce the growth of car-based travel by developing public transport networks. Much research asserts that the correct arrangement of built environment will result in the enhancement of public transport utilization. There is, however, debate that this approach results only in ‘self-selection’, that is that only residents willin...

Perth has seen one of the most deliberate attempts worldwide to move from car-dependent development patterns to transit-oriented development (TOD). State planning policy has required TOD for the past 20 years, the public transport network has been progressively improved and the institutional arrangements are strong. Three different town planning mo...

There is an emerging practice in urban arterial design, which seeks to shift the focus from segregating different users of the street to integrating them. In this respect, the integration of traffic and place functions is identified as the way forward. After a review of the US design models – Complete Streets Smart Codes, Context Sensitive Solution...

The redevelopment of railway stations and their surroundings has been high on the agenda of European cities for more than two decades. An evolving set of factors has fuelled these initiatives. Driving forces include the expansion and upgrading of rail infrastructure, the reduced demand for industrial space in central urban locations, the privatizat...

Land use and transport integration (LUTI) is a contemporary planning policy and practice that supports sustainable transport. Attempts to implement LUTI have raised questions about the appropriate organisational structure and the role of governance to deliver this policy. This paper presents the discussions from two public fora held in 2008 in Melb...

In the planning of a new passenger railway in Perth over many years, state agencies have actively pursued opportunities for transit-oriented development along its route. There is a strong policy framework demonstrating clear intent on the type of development required. Designing a transport system to compete with the car in an established low-densit...