Transport

Freedom of access to services.

As noted in the overview of BASE, access to public transport is a vital component in the public support infrastructure. Add to this the environmental imperative to increase efficiency and the economic stimulus of a mobile workforce and you can see that the provision of public mass transport services is a key element for all of our futures.
The LIFE Matrix provides an overview guide to the segementation of responsibilities between the different layers and, like Information, clearly delivers benefits across broader geographies than Communities alone.

Public transport has the objective of providing a transport infrastructure that can support the most basic requirements of the society, but it is not a replacement for private or individual transport services. Public transport decisions may affect the way in which private services can be delivered, for instance by defining certain areas as zero-emissions zones, and that is the planning perogative of the constituency.

Community

Transport Planning

A key reason for including Transport in the BASE infrastructure is to enable access to the other BASE services, and that must be a core prioritizing principle in the planning and provisioning of BASE-funded transport services.
Where there is a Community Center, then the planning can be simplified by making that the hub of the local public transport system.
Otherwise the service must reach directly to the service centers for all other BASE services as a proviso for the use of BASE funds.
One of the most powerful areas of Community responsibility is in the planning of their local transport services. For some urban communities the opportunity to create special zones that decrease emissions, improve safety and have knock-on social benefits will be immediately apparent. For others the ability to bring greater cohesion through carefully planned public services will be the goal.
In any case, the rights of Communities to evaluate their own needs and provision services themselves to satisfy their own needs is paramount.
Any local transport network needs to integrate in a coordinated manner with the transport infrastructure of the wider area in order to provide meanful services. To this end Communities will undoubtedly promote such responsibilities to their Regions, and Regions to their States, and States to their Transterritories.

Mass Transport

Communities should focus on the provisioning of mass transport services suitable to the size of their populations and terrain of their geography. Low or zero emissions bus services will likely provide the most flexible and cost effective solutions in many urban situations.

Transport Options

The desire of every Community to be able to accommodate the needs of those who cannot access individual or mass transport services can be satisfied by providing transport options peculiar to the Community. In some cases modifying public buses to accommodate wheelchairs will be a solution and in others a public rickshaw service will be the best solution.
Like advanced medical procedures, it is the responsibility of Communities to satisfy the most common and most basic transport needs fully first before using BASE funds to accommodate more specialized requirements.

Regions & above

While Transterritories are too large to provide anything except the most long distance, arterial transport services, their primary role is in the establishment of transport standards so that transport services across the constituency can flow with as little interruption as possible.
States and Regions will have to work together to establish the interconnections between Communties and Regions, with each layer focussed primarily on connecting its contituent constituencies and providing access to hubs for connection to the transport network of its parent layer.

Accessing Transport services

In most situations there is little benefit to be gained from controlling access to public mass transport. Transport managers can guage demand patterns through measuring use and there is little, or no, advantage in discriminating between residents and non-residents. This does not preclude any constituency from having access controls but does suggest that their benefits be carefully weighed against their costs.