Planning of Transport Systems under Increasing Complexity—Looking into Nature

The planning of transport infrastructure followed in the past the predicted transport demand. The challenges stemming from climate change and losses of biodiversity will force consideration of the increasing complexity of the transport system in future planning. Complexity research in natural science has developed strong concepts that show how natural organisms master complexity problems, recognized by recent Nobel Prizes in Physics and in Chemistry. Taking concepts like boundaries and folding as metaphors for treating complexity problems in transport infrastructure planning generates helpful lessons for its fundamental revision. It places the system’s view into the heart of the planning algorithm—instead of single projects—and stresses interactions within the transport system and between transport and interacting systems like economy, environment, and society. Appropriate methods for modelling dynamic systems exist in economics and transportation science but can further be developed analogously to the progress in natural science.