Model,process, technique,and the good thing

The paper unpacks the planning process into its component parts: model, process, technique, and goals—the “good thing”. The paper advances the concept that planning, policy-making, and organizational restructuring can be analyzed under the same framework. Each of the four components is described and reductionist examples are presented to clarify the intention and to illustrate the technique that the transport analyst teams employ in their work. The examples cover both successes and failures. They point toward the enormous scientific task ahead for planning to become meaningful and relevant to the problems of today. Finally, in the frame of the willingness to pay, the paper puts forward a case for an institutional framework for a financially autonomous road administration. Similarly organized, administered, and managed entities are relevant also for other transport modes.

Antti TalvitieEmail:

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Antti Talvitie   is a Professor (part time) at the Helsinki University of Technology. He has private practice as consultant and as psychoanalyst in the Washington DC area. Previously, Mr. Talvitie worked in the World Bank; was GM of Viatek Consulting Engineers in Espoo Finland; served as Director of Highway Construction and Maintenance in the Finnish Road Administration; and was Professor in the US, including Chairmanship of the Department Civil Engineering at the University of Buffalo. Mr. Talvitie holds Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.