Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology

Department(BUET)
of Civil Engineering

Assignment No: 01
Assignment Name: Difference between Urban/ Built up and
Rural/ Open Areas Land Use and Transport Characteristics

Submitted By: Md. Shofiul Islam

Student Id: 0421042405
M.Sc. Engg, Semester: April 2022

Submitted To:
Dr. Md. Shamsul Hoque
Professor
Department of Civil Engineering, BUET
Introduction:
Transportation system is a vital component of the economy of any society and a basic tool used for
development. It has now a massive impact on a global economy where economic opportunities have
been largely related to the mobility of people including information and communication technologies. There
is an obvious relation between the quality and quantity of transport infrastructure and the level of economic
development. When the transport systems are well organized, they provide economic and social
opportunities and benefits1.

Transports have a significant role in sustainable development also. To provide sustainable development, it
is necessary to provide a sustainable transportation infrastructure. Proper planning before design can
provide a sustainable transportation system. Roads are designed and built for their users.
Roads geometry and structure are designed based on their user's needs and transport characteristics.
Different areas have different road users, different transportation characteristics. Such as Urban and Rural
areas. Urban traffic dynamics are very complex and least understood where it is very simple and predictable
for Rural areas. To provide a safe, economical and sustainable system in Urban and Rural areas it is
necessary to understand the characteristics of the transportation system in both areas. Controlling criteria,
design elements are chosen based on the Urban and Rural nature of a roadway. As the Urban or Rural nature
of a roadway cannot be set up simply by looking at traffic volumes and speeds or by selecting from a table,
we have to establish differences between the transportation infrastructure, land use characteristics of both
areas.

Urban Area:
Urban areas have roadways which are generally identified by low to moderate posted speeds, frequent
entrances, and moderate to heavy residential or commercial development. It is often a highly densified area.
There is a huge number of smaller sized vehicles. Closed drainage with curbed sections is often seen,
although open drainage sections may be interspersed. Intersections, sidewalks, high pedestrian
concentration, turning movement of vehicles, and on-street parking are often characteristic of Urban
roadways. Urban area is very much mass transit oriented. There are always special requirements in rush
hour.

Rural Area:
Roadways that are not Urban in nature will be marked as Rural. Rural roadways will generallybe
characterized by moderate to high posted speeds, low pedestrian concentration, infrequent entrances less
turning movement, less or no parking activity, and low residential or commercial development. Open
drainage is generally prevalent2.

Transportation Characteristics in Urban and Rural area:

Urban Area: The trip making characteristics in urban city is least understood. The population concentration
has posed significant for the operation of the world's urban centers. Some common factors in urban areas
that affects transport modes are:
1. Demographic factor: Demographic, market, and technological factors
can all have a significant impact on urban transportation activities. Such
things as income, age, availability of an automobile, number of children,
and occupation were identified as important variables in models aimed
at predicting urban travel behavior. High income person tries to own a
car to make any trips if inviting environment of public transport had not
provided. Money is a less important factor for the rich people. But
workers or normal employees use public transport to fulfill their trip.
Socioeconomic characteristics also affects the transport choice in urban
areas. Figure 1: Demography

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2. Mobility: In order to plan transportation and develop policies in
transport demand management, the understanding of urban mobility
patterns is critical. Regular travel requirements and irregular travel
requests may lead to different urban mobility patterns in geographic
divisions3. Commuting-related trips represent regular flows between
residential and commercial areas and it occurs in a repetitive way in
everyday at a particular time. Peak flow occurs several times in a day
because of commuting trip. Whereas leisure-related trips that occur
outside of work hours are frequently stochastic movements.
Figure 2: Urban Mobility
3. Pedestrian Activities: Pedestrian movement often less predictable.
Usually, a person can take short trip by walking if adequate facilities
of sidewalk for pedestrian is provided. In developed countries,
attractive environment is provided for pedestrian. If short trips are
avoided by not taking any public transport then traffic jam can be
lessened and environment pollution would also reduce sufficiently. But
in Low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh, environment of
pedestrian is extremely poor which most often discourage people to
make short trips by walking. Walking has enormous potential and
should thus take principal place in urban transport policies to contribute Figure 3: Pedestrian activities
to high level governments' agenda4. Ensuring that walking with an
appealing environment is an alternative and complement to motorized transportation is a critical response
to the challenges of climate change, fossil fuel dependence, pollution, maintaining mobility for an aging
population, health, and managing the expected explosion in motorization in low- and middle-income
countries. Since today's trends will determine the future of cities for many decades, action is needed for
tomorrow's sustainable cities.

4. Freight Movement: As cities are dominant centers of production

and consumption, urban activities are accompanied by massive
freight flows. These motions are defined by the movement of
delivery trucks between businesses, warehouses, distribution
centers, and retail operations, as well as from important terminals
including ports, railyards, distribution centers, and airports. The rise
of e-commerce has been linked to an increase in parcel home
delivery. Freight mobility within cities is often disregarded, but it is
part of a growing topic connected to city coordination.
Figure 4: Freight vehicle
5. Parking Requirement: Parking spaces are demanded by residents,
employees, customers and visitors, and by delivery and service
traffic, city center, commercial buildings, shopping mall, institution
etc. in a car oriented developed city. Increasing amount of personal
car is becoming a problem for urban areas to meet the parking
requirement within limited space. One of the most important
linkages between transportation and land-use policy is parking
policy. It can be reduced if people are encouraged to use public
transit. Figure 5: Parking lot

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 6. Utility Line Connection: In city areas there is a shortage of space
so the utility lines are crossed through the streets. In most areas,
overhead lines are frequently used for electric transmission to
customers, and they are most likely to do so in the oldest parts of
these cities and towns. Underground area in cities is becoming
overcrowded due to the presence of urban utilities. As a result,
future sustainable underground solutions will have the capability
of reducing the need of traditional trenching.
Figure 6: Utility connection under ground
7. Public Transit:
• Mass Transit: Considering mass transit, which relies heavily on
economies of scale. Metro is most cost-effective at extremely
high concentrations. As passenger density rises, it becomes
worthwhile to pay one driver to service many passengers by
transporting them in a single vehicle, and eventually to
undertake the large capital cost of constructing a mass rapid
transit line. Mass transit requires access facilities which also
need to be taken into consideration while designing this system.
Figure 7: Mass Rapid transit
• Bus transit: One of the most common forms of urban transit
that includes vehicles of many sizes (from small vans to
articulated buses) offering seating and standing capacity along
scheduled routes and services. They usually share roadways
with other modes and are therefore susceptible to congestion.
Bus rapid transit systems offer a permanent or temporary right
of ways and have the advantage of unencumbered circulation.

Bus service requires some additional amenities like: Figure 8: Bus service
Dedicated lane: it provides robust service at the peak hour period.
Bus stoppage: Extra amount of land is required for bus stoppage
Design: Bus route should be designed in dumbbell shape where 180-degree turn requires or at dead end.

• Taxi systems: Private for-hire vehicles such as autos, jitneys, or

rickshaws are typically used to provide point-to-point services.
Recent technical advances have enabled car-sharing programs
and increased the availability of on-demand transportation.
Figure 9: Taxi service

8. Night light requirement: Sufficient amount of light and traffic is

required in the urban areas to properly control the movement of
traffic.

Rural Area: Figure 10: Night light

Rural public transit services serve communities that are not located in urban areas. Demand–response public
transportation, traditional and deviated fixed route services, vanpool, and reimbursement programs are all
examples of rural public transportation. Historically, the necessity for rural public transportation has been tied
to providing mobility and access to important employment, products, and services for older adults, people with
disabilities, low-income people, and others. Common features of rural areas are:

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Network complexity: Traffic network complexity in rural areas is quite simple.
There is no intersection constructed in the road so no traffic signal is required.
There is less human activity observed that is why it’s easy to manage and
enforce transport policy in such areas.

1. Traffic Dynamics: It is also more or less understood in open areas.

People involves in production activities and do not make trip on a Figure 11: No complexity of network
frequent manner. So, less traffic is observed in the highway.

2. Night light Requirement: Open area requires not so much night light. Only fewer location of relative
importance night light is required.

3. Side Friction: Traffic conflicts are usually generated at the intersection.

As there is no intersection in the highway, side friction is very less. Mainly
where market or community activities taken place there some side friction
can be noticed.
Figure 12: No side friction
4. Pedestrian Activities: Pedestrian circulation systems in open areas are often
incomplete and ineffective. These situations have resulted in a rising level
of pedestrian vehicle conflicts on high-speed, high-volume highways.
Although less pedestrian activities happen in open areas than that of built-
up area, pedestrians are extremely vulnerable in crashes with the faster
moving and much more massive motor vehicles4.
Figure 13: Pedestrian movement

5. Turning Movement: In a highway, design is made in such a manner

turning is not frequently required. As compared to signalized intersection
in urban areas, turning of vehicle can be eased by employing super-
elevation and curve setting which is mostly ensured based on the large
vehicle’s turning requirement.

Figure 14: Turning

6. Land Access Control: Normally when development project activities taken place in urban settings then
lots of additional features are required to add like parking facilities, access facilities, public transport
facilities as trips attracted those location, etc. Unlike built up areas, there is very less amount of rebound
development alongside the highway in rural areas so land access can properly be controlled.

Land Use Characteristics:

Land use and transportation cannot be separated. Land use is directly influenced by transportation planning,
by affecting the amount of land used for transport facilities. It also affects the location and design of
development indirectly. For example, increasing Urban highways increases pavement area, and encourages
more dispersed, automobile-based development while walking, cycling and public transport improvements
encourage compact, infill development5. Major land use categories are listed as follows:

Urban or Built-up area:

Lands in the built-up area are generally used for multipurpose such as mass transit, utility lines, street lights
which require proper planning and geometric design. There is very little or no scope of step construction.
Ribbon development generates traffic on the arterial road which also reduces the road space. Buildings in
Urban areas are mega-traffic generators. It also includes residential areas including single- and multi-family
housing, commercial areas such as stores and offices, institutional areas like schools, public offices,

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 industrial areas, old, unused, and underused facilities. Urban transport systems are very diverse system.

Rural or Open area:

Lands of open areas are generally used for single-purpose which include parkland, agricultural, forests, bush,
grasslands, wildlands, shorelines. There is no ribbon development. Step construction is possible here. Driving
is faster in rural areas with less accessible land and fewer travel options.

If we try to draw the conclusion of differences of those urban and rural area discussed above in a tabular form
then it could be as follows:

No. Perspective Urban Rural

1 Network Complex Simple
complexity
2 Traffic dynamic Less understood Understood
3 Turning movement Critical design of turning Less than urban setting
movement is required of large
vehicles
4 Access of land Access control is very complicated Access control is much easier as there is
which required preplanned very less amount of rebound
rigorous design development
5 Pedestrian Very frequent Much less
appearance
6 Side friction Huge amount of side friction in Side friction is very less
urban areas
7 Emergency vehicle Can access to the spot promptly Less than urban
8 Mobility Conflicted movement Conflict free movement
9 Car ownership high Low, mostly uses public transit
10 Public transit Requires inquisitive design to meet Required very less amount than urban
the need of increasing traffic
11 Night light Required Not required
requirement
12 Multimodal System Possible Not Possible
13 Land Use Very Densified Low Densified
14 Unit of Definition PPHPD Pcu/hr
15 Type of Vehicle Various types of smaller vehicle Heavy Vehicle dominated
can be there

Conclusion:
A sustainable transportation system cannot be provided without proper planning and design. Design and
planning should be done according to the road and its users' characteristics. Urban and rural areas have different
transport and land use features. Urban area requires mobility and accessibility for all urban residents. It also
needs a safe and environmentally friendly mode of transport. Recently private car is increasing in urban areas
especially in developing countries. It emits pollutants in the environment. It requires a huge road space. To fulfil
the demand natural terrain is decreasing. There should be a self-enforcement system which can force people to
take public transport instead of a private car. Though rural transport systems are very simple, it needs special
attention. Because the communication system of a country is very much dependent on it.

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References

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22]. Available from: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter3/transportation-and-
economic-development/

2. Maine.gov. [cited 2022 July 22]. Available from:

https://www.maine.gov/mdot/engineering/docs/practises/2018/Urban-Rural-definitions.pdf

3. Chen Y, Zhang Z, Liang T. Assessing urban travel patterns: An analysis of traffic analysis zone-based
mobility patterns. Sustainability. 2019 Oct 1;11(19):5452.

4. Hall JW, Brogan JD, Kondreddi K. Pedestrian safety on rural highways. US Department of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Office of Safety; 2004.

5. Litman T. Evaluating transportation land use impacts. World Transport Policy & Practice.
1995;1(4):9-16