ABSTRACT
Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas,
New Delhi, India
This chapter presents the relationship between land use-transport policies and its impact on traffic crashes. Land use policies and design of infrastructure both have a major impact on road traffic crashes (RTC) in cities. City planning and land use policies which include the location of different activities, location of residential areas, built area densities and planning of transport networks, influence the choice of destinations, and transport modes as well as the distances that various people have to travel. Thus exposure to road traffic risk and the distances traveled by people for different purposes is influenced by the planning policies at city level. We present a case study of Delhi, India to show the impact of urban planning policies on the safety of road users. The case study presents the impact of relocating poor households from the self-selected locations in Delhi to the outskirts for the construction of Metro and other city developments plans between 1997-2001. It is possible to evolve methodologies and plans which account for benefits and dis-benefits to the society as a whole, and which help resolve conflicts between mobility and safety at various levels. These methodologies are urgently needed in societies which have hierarchical structures and where the level of complexity is high due to the presence of heterogeneity in every walk of life.
