Author(s): Anna-Karin Holmström

Abstract: Rapid urbanization has intensified traffic congestion within residential neighbourhoods, creating mobility inefficiencies, environmental stress, and declining quality of life. Traditional traffic management approaches often address roadway capacity in isolation, neglecting the spatial and functional relationships between land use, street networks, and travel behavior. This review examines how integrated urban planning and transportation engineering strategies can reduce neighbourhood-level congestion through coordinated design, policy, and operational measures. The abstract synthesizes evidence on compact land-use patterns, mixed-use zoning, street connectivity, public transport integration, and demand-sensitive traffic engineering interventions. Emphasis is placed on neighbourhood-scale solutions such as complete streets, transit-oriented development interfaces, non-motorized transport infrastructure, traffic calming, and localized access management. The research highlights the role of planning-led trip reduction combined with engineering-led traffic efficiency in shaping sustainable mobility outcomes. Comparative insights from developed and developing urban contexts are used to demonstrate how integration improves travel time reliability, reduces vehicle kilometres travelled, enhances safety, and lowers emissions. The review also identifies institutional and technical barriers that limit effective coordination between planning agencies and traffic engineers, including fragmented governance, data incompatibility, and short-term project-based decision making. By consolidating interdisciplinary findings, the article provides a structured understanding of how neighbourhood congestion can be mitigated through synchronized spatial planning and engineering design. The findings suggest that isolated interventions deliver limited benefits, whereas integrated frameworks yield cumulative and resilient congestion reduction. The review concludes that embedding transportation engineering considerations within urban planning processes is essential for achieving long-term neighbourhood mobility efficiency, environmental sustainability, and liability. It further emphasizes evidence-based collaboration, context-sensitive design standards, participatory planning, and continuous performance monitoring as critical enablers for aligning neighbourhood mobility objectives with broader urban development goals while supporting equitable access, economic vitality, and climate-responsive transportation systems across diverse urban forms and governance contexts worldwide to inform future policy and practice globally today.

DOI: 10.22271/27078361.2026.v7.i1a.86

Pages: 15-18 | Views: 20 | Downloads: 7

Download Full Article: Click Here