All the papers in this volume were presented at a conference on
Transportation and Urban Life, held in Munich during the third week of
September, 1975. The conference was sponsored by the Special Programme
Panels on Systems Science and Human Factors of the Science Committee of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The distinguishing
characteristic of the conference and of this volume lies in the
combination of systems science and human factors contributions in the
field of urban transportation. The initiative for attempting such a
synthesis came from the sponsors. It is increasingly realised that the
complexity of contemporary problems which applied scientists are being
asked to solve is such that the coordinated efforts of several
disciplines are needed to solve them. The brief which we formulated for
the conference and distribu- ted in our international call for papers
was as follows: "The conference is intended to highlight significant
psycho- logical, SOCiological and economic aspects of transportation and
urban life and to present new techniques which can be applied to these
aspects and their interfaces". Papers were invited in four topic areas:
Communities (transportation problems in relation to social needs,
residential planning, industry and c0l1lITlerce); Cities and large urban
areas (the econOlnic environment, material fl l, resources); Regional
development and transportation (administration and management at the
project and multiprogramme level); and Quality of life and
transportation (noise, visual intrusion, severance, air pollution).