As the different sections of this website show, we provide an ample range of services on transport planning and its impact on system efficiency, urban development, the local economy and urban quality of life. Our analytical capabilities are a guarantee that we will explore many options, before we come up with a set of recommended proposals, to fit our clients goals and expectations.
We focus on infrastructure decisions, new operating paradigms and urban transformations, all of them pursuing the goals of improving economic efficiency, environmental quality and the daily life of our fellow citizens. Under the current economic climate, we have demonstrated our capacity to reduce unnecessary costs or investments, while retaining the basic goals of the project or system under analysis.
We started operations back in February 1989, with the ultimate goal of providing independent, creative and state-of-the-art advisory services. Our approaches and recommendations always attempt to satisfy the three basic goals of Sustainability: Economic development, Social Equity and Environmental Quality.
Our 1992 "Access in Bilbao" report, sponsored by the Bizkaia Territorial Studies Institute, written as a joint venture with EcoPlan Int, based in Paris, signalled our commitment to the 3 E's of Sustainability (Economy, Equity and Environment) As a follow up we were commissioned by MOPTMA, the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment, to serve as Technical Secretariat of two Conferences, in Toledo and in Granada, to set up the new guidelines for urban transport policies. These set of principles was summarized in the known as "Granada Declaration" There Mr. Eric Britton, from EcoPlan, proposed in Toledo the CarFree Day Event, which through the endorsement of several European Cities has served to challenge the status quo and to organize on such a day several iniatives to influence both public perceptions and public policy.
Early on, our studies were framed in a multi disciplinary approach given the various impacts of transportation. In fact, our analyses, proposals and evaluations are often framed as "beyond transportation" given its systemic nature. Similarly, we involved all stakeholders, including what we often describe as the "forgotten citizens", our children, and our future.
We are very grateful to all our clients and sponsors in the many transport related fields were we have worked, as described in the several thematic categories contained in this website. It has been a very rewarding experience to innovate in this critical policy area by bringing and sharing many experiences and ideas from and with other cities and countries. We believe that while languages and accents vary among different locations, the impact of transport policies shape similar perceptions and reactions among city dwellers, given our many commonalities cutting across cultural differences.
Given our commitment to innovation and quality, we have pioneered many conceptual, analytical and implementation approaches such as
- Application of microscopic models (TrafNetsim in 1991), not as a research tool, but as a traffic model to design a signalized roundabout in Donostia-San Sebastian, after video recording car drivers behavioral patterns.
- Joint utilization of GIS systems, demand models and microscopic models, with feedback among them
- Joint traffic, transit and parking proposals in 1992 to create new public spaces in a wide array of cities, towns and villages in the Basque Country.
- Specification of a on street parking in 1994, based on car plate number recognition, with parkmeters being part of a wide zone computer network, to allow flexible pricing to favor shopping trips, while discouraging, but not impeding, commuter trips
- Application of traffic microscopic models to estimate commercial speed of LRT systems with different levels of signal priority, prior to demand estimates
- Use of Dynamic Traffic Assignment (D.T.A.) to challenge some traffic policies driven by conventional static assignments resuts in terms of unrealistic V/C ratios (exceeding 1.0), which would render unfeasible, potential growth scenarios
- Utilization of "Scenario Planning" to examine the robustness of a given set of proposals due to the intrinsic uncertainty of future scenarios under the potential impadt of pattern breaks
- Adoption of new transport indicators in terms of actual social costs, which not only provide "teeth" to sustainable policies, but greatly exceed the costs borned by the Government Administration.
- Brainstorming sessions and public fora among stakeholders, including what we call "Dialogue Mapping" since 1999.
Our offices are located in the Gobelas Bldg in Leioa, by the Avanzada Highway, where we will be pleased to welcome you. While we have focused mostly in the Basque Country and some of the neighboring Communities (Rioja, Navarre, Santander, Southern France, Barcelona, Spain's Mediterranean coast...), we are currently growing our presence abroad as well. In fact, we can facilitate collaboration across time-zones thanks to our experience using Videoconference systems for many years, dating back to the pre-internet era, when we relied on ISDN lines. In fact, we currently work in both modes, synchronous and asynchronous, depending on the actual location of our staff at a given point in time.
We hope that a few minutes in this website, will provide you with a better appreciation of our services,and practical experience. While we draft obviously many reports, and have a good techical in house library, what we are most proud of are the tangible changes and transformations which we have been very fortunate to contribute to, as some of this web examples describe.
Should you wish further information on our services, please feel free to get in touch with us. We will be delighted to hear from you with feedback, suggestions, requests for services or ideas for joint ventures.
(*) NB: We maintain the following quality certificates: ISO 9001:2008 e ISO 14001:2004 
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MOPTMA
