Issues in Formulating Urban Transportation Master Plans in Emerging Economies: Experiences in Colombo Metropolitan Area

The purpose of this paper is to identify issues in preparing transportation plans for urban areas in emerging economies where the economy is vigorously growing by studying the urban transportation master plan formulation for the Colombo Metropolitan Area. Contrasting with developed countries, it is likely that there will be no or only weakly documented urban planning regulations. If that is the case, urban structure and land use plans must be prepared in order to facilitate the transportation planning. This can be a good opportunity to prepare land use and transportation integrated plans. Considering the human resources required for master plan formulation, time schedule for planning, required accuracy of data, key projects which affect the overall master plan scenario and the requests of policy makers; it is highly recommended to quantitatively forecast future transportation demand and evaluate projects using scenario-based and corridor-based evaluations, bearing in mind assumptions made for the estimation. The experiences of other urban areas also help provide insight on the direction of the future transportation systems. It is also recommended to allot ample time for communication with policy makers and the public involvement process by using a strategic environmental assessment process. Finally, it is proposed to study further the legal, institutional and financial aspects to implement and manage the plan. Examples in other countries imply the possibility of a new organization in charge of master plan monitoring and data management.