Revising Isfahan's Master Plan

Overview

CLIENT
City of Isfahan
LOCATION
Isfahan, Iran
Role
Designer, Planner
Markets
Transit
Transportation Market
Solutions
Express Transit Network Design
Urban Transportation
Projects Selection, Evaluation, and Scheduling
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan
Regions
Municipality of Isfahan

Our Client’s Challenge

Isfahan (or Esfahan) is a city in the Central District of Isfahan County, located in Isfahan Province, Iran. It serves as the capital of the province, county, and district. Situated about 440 kilometers (270 miles) south of Tehran, Isfahan has a population of approximately 2.22 million, making it the third most populous city in Iran after Tehran and Mashhad, and the second-largest metropolitan area in the country.
The City of Isfahan operates both BRT and conventional bus services and has been planning to add a metro (subway) system to its transit network since the 1980s. As the metro system represents the highest tier in the public transit hierarchy, its design and planning have a cascading impact on all other transit services. Consequently, any changes in its layout or operations can significantly influence the city’s short- and long-term transportation strategies.
Despite spending more than a decade in the planning phase, the city has had to revise its metro design and master plan multiple times due to evolving priorities and external challenges. Among these were unanticipated budget cuts and economic uncertainty, which forced the city to reconsider the timing and scope of major infrastructure projects. Additionally, the growing emphasis on sustainability motivated planners to re-examine how environmental and social considerations could be incorporated into the city’s long-term development strategy.
At the time of this project, the city faced a list of more than 40 major infrastructure initiatives, including over 12 new BRT lines and more than 20 new or widened streets. Given limited financial resources, Isfahan needed to evaluate these projects collectively, identify the most beneficial set, prioritize them for implementation, and revise its master plan accordingly.
This project focused on several key objectives:

1. Critical Assessment: Evaluating the performance of the existing transportation network and identifying opportunities to enhance its overall efficiency and effectiveness.
2. Master Plan Review: Examining the city’s current master plan to identify weaknesses, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
3. Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan: Developing a comprehensive, long-term strategy to guide the creation of a sustainable and integrated urban transportation system for the city.
4. Scenario Development: Defining a series of potential land use and travel demand scenarios to anticipate future growth patterns and transportation needs.
5. Project Evaluation, Selection, and Scheduling:Applying data-driven methods and simulation tools to perform corridor analyses, evaluate candidate projects, select the most beneficial set of projects under fiscal and operational constraints, and establish a construction schedule.
6. Stakeholder Reporting and Public Outreach: Organizing facilitated workshops to gather input from city officials and the public, incorporating feedback from both transit users and non-users into the planning process, and maintaining ongoing coordination through regular meetings with internal management teams.

Our Solution

In partnership with the Municipality of Isfahan and the Department of Transportation, and utilizing detailed historical data, our project developed multiple data-driven strategies and analytical methods to address the city’s transportation planning challenges. For this study, we were granted access to an extensive range of datasets from the Department of Transportation, including GTFS, APC, AFC, and AVL data, as well as stated preference survey results, public outreach materials, financial and capital planning documents, and the city’s master plan along with other related reports. With this comprehensive data foundation, our team employed innovative, data-driven approaches to execute the project through three major stages outlined in the proposed project pipeline.

Figure: Naqsh-e Jahan Square, the Largest Trip Generation/Attraction Location in Isfahan.

Public Outreach and Stakeholder Interviews

Our team believed that preparing an effective long-term transportation plan required incorporating the perspectives of all stakeholders, including users, non-users, managers, and academics, during the planning stage.
In this phase of the project:

• Multiple workshops were held with city officials and managers from the Department of Transportation.
• A novel survey method was designed to facilitate both public and stakeholder outreach.
• Managers participated in one-on-one, in-person interviews.
• Over 500 citizens, randomly selected from all areas of the city, were interviewed individually over a three-month period by a team of more than 20 trained interviewers.
• All transportation and logistics researchers at Isfahan’s universities who were actively engaged in city transportation studies were interviewed.
• A sophisticated text analysis model, supported by custom computer programming, was developed to systematically analyze and interpret the qualitative feedback gathered from the public and stakeholder outreach activities.

Developing a Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan

Building on the results of public and stakeholder outreach, along with an extensive review of global literature and technical reports, our team developed a strategic sustainable urban transportation plan for the City of Isfahan.
The goal of this stage was to identify how sustainability could be achieved across:

• Different transportation sectors,
• Various municipal areas (the city is divided into 15 districts), and
• The citywide transportation network as a whole. The plan outlined specific actions and strategies to achieve sustainability targets over the short-, medium-, and long-term. Moreover, this document served as a roadmap for integrating sustainability and environmental considerations, tailored specifically to the context of Isfahan, into all current and future transportation projects and master planning efforts. In particular, we provided guidance to the city on how to incorporate historical site protection into its urban and transportation planning processes.

Figure: Urban Transportation Network of Isfahan.

Project Evaluation, Selection, and Scheduling

After developing the Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan, our team created multiple data-driven models, supported by advanced computer programming and integrated with GIS and transportation simulation software such as EMME. We then conducted a series of detailed corridor and roadway studies.
The main objectives of this stage were to:

1. Evaluate all possible sets of projects, including new BRT lines, new roadway construction, and street widening initiatives.
2. Select the optimal combination of projects in each category, considering both technical feasibility and budget constraints.
3. Schedule the construction of selected projects over a five-year planning period and a seven-year evaluation horizon, ensuring that implementation aligns with the city’s strategic and financial objectives.

Outcomes

• Modern Public and Stakeholder Outreach Design: Developed an innovative approach for conducting public and stakeholder outreach, including survey and interview design, and advanced analytical methods to interpret the collected feedback.
• Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan: Prepared the city’s first Strategic Sustainable Urban Transportation Plan, providing clear guidance on integrating sustainability into both short- and long-term city planning.
• Scalable, Linked Data-Driven Approaches and Simulation Tools: Created a replicable framework that integrates data-driven methods with advanced transportation simulation tools for project evaluation, selection, and scheduling.
• Operational Continuity: Ensured uninterrupted transit service during construction phases by designing shock-control strategies to mitigate disruptions.
• Sustainability Benefits: Achieved measurable improvements, including a 6% reduction in emissions, a 19% increase in spatial equity, and a 4% reduction in total system costs, while improving accessibility, equity, and community well-being.
• Comprehensive Technical Guidance for Master Plan Revision: Delivered detailed technical reports and recommendations to support the city in future revisions of its master plan.

Recommendations and Policy Implications

The findings have several important implications for urban policy and transportation planning:

1. Public Outreach: Continuous public engagement ensures post-implementation satisfaction and strengthens the social sustainability of the transportation network.
2. Historical Site Protection: As one of the oldest cities in the world, Isfahan must prioritize the preservation of its historical sites. At the same time, improving access to these areas remains a key public concern, directly influencing the city’s social and economic sustainability.
3. Investment in Public Transit: Sustainable development goals across all three pillars, i.e., environmental, social, and economic, can only be achieved through sustained investment in public transit infrastructure and services. In particular, the implementation of BRT projects will lead to a substantial improvement in the overall performance and efficiency of the city’s transportation network.
4. Shock Control Strategies: Clear strategies should be established during the planning phase to manage disruptions caused by new construction projects, preventing social dissatisfaction and potential project cancellations.