Chapter 5: General conclusions

Further research required

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Our studies do no more than disclose the first stage of a big subject. Basically it is the great social problem of the form and organisation of towns and cities that requires attention, and there is much to be done. With particular reference to the problems of transport and traffic the following are some main headings under which further research is required:

1. Urban Form
   The physical form of urban areas making for minimum or most efficient movement, with particular reference to size, density, distribution of land uses, and changing social habits. These are important questions in view of the great increase of the population that is expected.
2. Movement
   The quantitative relationships between land uses, activities, and traffic generation. Methods of predicting movement demands for various dispositions of development. The allocation of demands between transport systems.
3. Networks
   Theoretical network patterns. Questions of capacity. Methods of arriving at practical patterns. Problems of the staged construction of networks. Design and aesthetic problems of wide roads and big interchanges situated in urban areas.
4. Environment
   Environmental standards. Environmental management as a technique.
5. Comprehensive Development
   
   1. Problems of finance, organisation and execution,
   2. problems of design, scale, and traffic architecture,
   3. building and constructional techniques for large-scale operations.
6. Cost benefit analysis
   Further study of the application of cost benefit analysis, in order to reveal where, in complex problems, the public advantage really lies. This would have a bearing on the development of new ideas for the issue of grants of financial assistance to local authorities.
7. Movement Systems
   Continuing study of ways and means of moving people and goods around in urban areas. The problem of movement will always be such that there will be a place for new methods of proved efficiency and economy. There is no organisation working methodically in this field at present.