A two-dimensional framework for the understanding of transportation planning models

This article puts forward the view that, for each transportation planning or management problem, there is a particular way to simultaneously define the multiple levels of procedures useful for the problem and set it in its proper perspective, the latter essentially by the identification of what is exogenous and endogenous to the problem at hand. The joint determination of these levels and of the exogenous/endogenous mix defines the two-dimensional frame of each problem. To develop our view, we extend our previous conceptual framework to include, in the first dimension, an activity location procedure, and to distinguish, in the second dimension, between operational, tactical, and strategic perspectives. We conclude by relativising the use of solution techniques by making them ancillary to the situation planning requirements.