Integrated Quality Management for Urban Transport Systems

In our societies, in many areas of production and services quality management proceduresare already well established. They became important elements of a successful businessmanagement. In traffic and transport such approaches to quality management came up onlyquite late with increasing privatization and market-orientation. Meanwhile, several instru-ments of quality management have been established. Nevertheless, a comprehensive andintegrated quality management for urban transport systems has not been developed yet.This contribution describes the objectives of such a comprehensive quality management andthe related basic methods. The different perspectives of road users, transport systemoperators, and the society on the quality are analysed. The application of qualitymanagement for products and processes in the urbantransport system is drafted. There fore,a modular approach is developed. It covers the planning, implementation, and operation of the transport infrastructure. Several development needs are identified, which addresses procedures and tools of quality management for different systems, criteria to describe thequality, demanded levels of quality, procedures to measure and monitor quality, a qualitymanagement handbook, a formal certification, and of course appropriate resources. The contribution aims to draw a comprehensivepicture on how such quality management systemfor urban traffic should look like, and which problems must be expected on the way towardsits implementation