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Transport networks form the backbone of communication networks by cost-efficiently offering huge bandwidth and by guaranteeing a high service quality and availability. These requirements can best be met by using optical communication technologies. Currently, wavelength-switching is the most prominent network technology employing optical fiber communication and wavelength division multiplexing. It transports data in circuit-switched wavelength channels, the so-called lightpaths. While for years progress in optical networks has been defined by ever increasing transmission bit-rates, higher flexibility and manageability as well as multi-service and multi-layer integration are equally important criteria today. Accounting for these trends, optical burst switching (OBS) has been proposed as a highly dynamic optical network architecture. It offers fine-granular transport of different packet-switched services and applies statistical multiplexing directly in the optical layer. This thesis presents the design, modeling, and evaluation of the optical burst transport network architecture (OBTN). The architecture is motivated by the need for flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient transport in next generation networks. In addition, it is stimulated by the researc