Juan de Dios Ortúzar
At the beginning of 2024, Modelling Transport’s fifth and final edition (Ortúzar and Willumsen, 2024) appeared on the shelves. In writing this new edition, some 700 pages long, we took over a year to try and This paper discusses, first, the main transport planning challenges today, from the point of view of the author. These are: (a) decarbonisation, given the global warming threat; (b) urban congestion, closely related with the previous one, and (c) our ability to forecast the value of the planning variables required by our models. The paper goes on to suggest potential solution paths to all these issues. Then, the paper discusses the main transport modelling challenges today, arguing that if not correctly interpreted by well trained professionals, models may be misleading and, at best, confusing. The paper ends with some encouraging conclusions, and argue strongly that modellers must continue working hard, among other things, to explain policy makers, politicians and the public, that urban transport modelling and planning involves extremely complex problems that defy simplistic solutions.
