Historically, road authorities responded to increasing demand by adding capacity, building new roads or expanding the existing ones. With the high costs and constraints on building conventional infrastructure, maximising the effectiveness of existing systems, including capitalising on new technologies such as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), has become, for many authorities, a new focus. Given demographic trends and the growing demand for improved system performance, road authorities are changing the way they plan and operate their transport systems and are focusing more intensely on road network operations.
This part of the Network Operations Handbook provides a general introduction to the subject.
4 Handbooks 
Historically, road authorities responded to increasing demand by adding capacity, building new roads or expanding the existing ones. With the high costs and constraints on building conventional infrastructure, maximising the effectiveness of existing systems, including capitalising on new technologies such as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), has become, for many authorities, a new focus. Given demographic trends and the growing demand for improved system performance, road authorities are changing the way they plan and operate their transport systems and are focusing more intensely on road network operations.