Urban public transport in an international perspective

Abstract

One of the striking characteristics of our time has been the rapid urbanization process in many of the so-called developing countries-a process that is still ongoing. When the British left India, Dhaka was a town of some 400,000 inhabitants-about the same as Goteborg today. New York, London and Paris were the big cities then. 50 years later, Dhaka belongs to the world's new megacities with over 10 million inhabitants. Such rapid growth naturally puts pressure on all city functions, not least transportation, which is the circulation system of the urban organism. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.