Finnish Road Adminstration (Finnra)

Research Program
Community Impacts of Transportation Planning

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Community Impacts of Transportation Planning is a three-year research program which aims at developing Finnra's strategic planning and assessing impacts of alternative allocations of road infrastructure expenditure. The program was initiated in 1995 and the annual budget is around three to four hundred thousand dollars. 1997 was final year of the research program and main emphasis was placed on implementation of research results.

Decision-making is the key word for the research program. Research results will be used in various decision-making situations in road transportation policy-making and investment programming. In practice research findings will and have been used in committee and taskforce reports which determine future road transportation policies.

Almost 30 research reports have been completed so far. In the beginnig the research program focused on whole transportation sector and the role of road transportation infrastructure in it. The focus has been sharpened over the past years and three topic areas were specified for years 1996-7:

• road expenditure allocation
• low-volume road policies
• road transportation pricing.

The two last topic areas were finalized by the end of 1996. The first one - road expenditure allocation - was concluded in early 1998.

Abstracts of research reports

• Development of the Finnish Transport System from the Point of View of National Economy (Finnra Reports 80/1995)
• Impacts of the Mikkeli Bypass Road, a Follow-up Study (Finnra Reports 68/1995)
• Strategic Transportation Planning in Finland (Finnra Reports 78/1995)
• Is Traffic Reduction Possible? (Finnra Reports 92/1995)
• Finnish People's Daily Activities and Needs for Moving (Finnra Reports 70/1995)
• Optimizing Speeds of Road Traffic (Finnra Reports 77/1995 )
• Transport Needs of New Businesses in Rural Areas (Finnra Reports 61/1995)
• Analysis of the Finnish Transport Policy and its Implementation (Finnra Reports 71/1995)
• Developing Usage of Input-output Models in Transport Sector Impact Assessment (Finnra Reports 50/1994)
• Decision-making in a Main Road Section Planning Process, Case: Main Road 7 between Koskenkyla and Loviisa (Finnra Reports 65/1995)
• How Does Transport-factor Affect the Finnish National Competitiveness? (Finnra's Internal Reports 51/1995)
• Low-volume Road Network Improvements in the Context of Rural Community Development in Finland (Finnra Reports 55/1995)
• Comparison of Long-Range Road Transportation Planning in Finland and Sweden (Finnra Reports 32/1995)
• Would the Road Network of the 1970's be Good Enough for the Current Transportation Needs? Effects of Road Improvements on Transportation and Regional Economics (Finnra Reports 12/1996)
• Freight transportation on the Finnish rural low-volume roads (Finnra's Internal Reports 11/1996)
• Length and standard of road network with regard to cost effectiveness (Finnra Reports 26/1996)
• Community Impacts of Constructing a New Road, Case Study: Lahti-Orimattila Road Connection (Finnra Reports 28/1996)
• Impacts of Major Transportation Projects on Urban development (Finnra Reports 40/1996 in Finnish)
• Road Transportation of the Commercial and Industrial Sector (Finnra Reports 52/1996 in Finnish)
• Survey of international experiences on strategic transportation planning (Finnra Reports 61/1996 in Finnish)
• Applicability of decision-aid tools in road agency strategia planning (Finnra Reports 64/1996 in Finnish)
• Preservation of the asset value of the Finnish public road network (Finnra Reports 66/1996 in Finnish)
• The impacts of changes in road transportation pricing (Finnra Reports 68/1996 in Finnish)
• Maintenace strategies of the low-volume road network; the impact of road improvement measures on the development of rural communities (Finnra Reports 80/1996 in Finnish)
• Maintenance strategies of the low-volume road network; The impacts of the allocation of the maintenance funding on the freight transport (Finnra Reports 12/1997 in Finnish)
• Opinions of car and lorry drivers about needs to develop traffic and road conditions in Finland (Finnra Reports 13/1997 in Finnish)
• Road conditions in Finland and the road transportation of the commercial and industrial sector (Finnra Internal Reports 36/1997 in Finnish)
• The impacts of the road traffic service level on transportation economics and business logistics (Finnra Internal Reports 8/1998 in Finnish)