The approaches in urban transportation planning studies in Turkey; problems and solutions

Since the 1950?s, comprehensive urban transportation master plans are being prepared in the world. Either partial or comprehensive, many transport studies and plans have been conducted in our cities in order to plan urban traffic and transport systems since the 1960?s, which is the beginning of the planned period in Turkey. In this thesis study, the urban transport studies and plans of our cities are examined and evaluated in the chronological order in a comprehensive manner. The objective to be reached in the thesis is a definition of the regulation proposals in macro level in order to overcome indefiniteness and disorder, and formulation of a systematic structure in the urban transportation planning in Turkey. Within this framework, the background and progress of urban transportation planning in Turkey, together with planning processes, scopes, policies, approaches and proposals adopted in the studies are examined; the studies are classified and evaluated under the basis of some criteria and the achieved results are defined statistically by means of some numbers. Thus, a general overview on the development of urban transportation planning practice and the studies prepared up to now in Turkey is given. Consequently, this comprehensive scientific study, which covers all of the transportation studies and plans of Turkish cities, fills a gap in literature. The thesis has an inventory characteristic in terms of urban transportation planning studies in Turkey and vii it is believed that the thesis will be a useful source in transport education and planning and by the particular attention it points out to the importance of urban transportation planning, it will contribute the transportation sector shareholders a lot.