Transportation Planning Studies for Socio-Economic Development of Depressed Sub-Regions: A Review

Transport sector can be considered as a backbone of the national and regional economies. Well-arranged transportation facilities are essential for the movement of people and goods, which can make nations agile and strong to face ever-increasing global and local socioeconomic problems. However, most of the developing countries were facing acute transport-related problems, i.e. absence of transport policies, inaccessibility, the proper road network hierarchy and unavailability of low-cost transportation services, especially for rural dwellers. Hence, the aim of this research is to propose policy implications by reviewing suitable literature associated with regional transportation planning, which can be essential to upsurge accessibility standards and abolish the transport-related problems of the rural sub-regions of developing countries. This research article is intended for the planned development and socioeconomic well-being of depressed sub-regions, which are struggling with the problem of transportation inaccessibility over the years. It was found that accessibility is a dominant element of transportation studies in rural subregions, if addressed by the concerned authorities or planning agencies; the deprived sub-regions can flourish and prosper with the passage of time.


Transportation Planning Studies for Socio-Economic Development of Depressed Sub-Regions: A Review
planned growth within destitute sub-regions and support socio-economic sectors, by improving accessibility standards and reducing travel time, both for freight and passenger transportation purposes.
Regional Transportation Planning is one of the disciplines, which tremendously took men to the modern era and assist in travelling thousands of miles efficiently and comfortably. Transportation planning is a crucial component for the economic development of aloof subregions [5]. In remote environments, it is the only hope, which gives access to economic opportunities and makes rural economies stable [6]. The explanation of the regional transportation planning scenario can be viewed in Fig. 1.
It is palpable from Fig. 1 that the village population uses minor unpaved tracks to access nearby surroundings for the purpose of firewood, drinking water needs and agriculture. The same village when connect to the neighboring town uses minor paved roads for the purpose of health, education, service center and market accessibility. The town is connected with the city by arterial road or primary road, and having heavy traffic, like trucks and buses, etc.
The transportation sector can truly assist rural subregions from many aspects, like accessing basic services, completing daily activities, and travelling efficiently. It is proven that efficient completion of household activities put positive impacts on sub-regional socioeconomic structure and economy. Easy and efficient completion of daily routine activities of rural households is possible with the provision of apt land use standards and transportation services. For example, Fox [8] conceptualized human activities, which are efficiently served by regional transportation planning. These different activities can be shown in Fig. 2. households. The improved regional transportation system provides a husband liberty to enjoy easy access to his workplace. After finishing his work, he can walk for sports activities, which are easily accessible to him. His son drives his car to school that picks his father for a home from the sports complex after fishing school. Now, wife can use the same car for shopping and can meet with friends without any hindrances. The grandmother can do some hangouts nearby open spaces with her pet. In this way, the overall household activities furnished efficiently without any problems and delays. Therefore, it seems positive to have regional transportation guidelines, which could assist in accomplishing household activities and valuate the scope of the regional transportation system.
In order to provide transportation solutions and wayouts, this review study was conducted to propose policy guidelines and highlight the importance of transportation studies in the development of rural sub-regions of developing countries.
FIG. 1. RURAL-REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM [7] The development of rural sub-regions can not only be accomplished by inducing the transport sector alone; one other important sector is vital in this regards, i.e. agriculture. It is really significant to promote the agriculture sector, by promoting rural-urban transport linkages and enhancing transport flows, as peasants can reach urban markets timely to earn valuable profits of their agricultural products. Thus, to strengthen the rural economy, it is expedient to promote the agriculture sector, which is the backbone of the rural-regional economy. Agriculture is a dominant sector, on which most of the rural economy depends, but due to unavailability of transport services, this sector is also tumbling in most of the rural sub-regions of developing countries.

REMOTE REGIONS AND AGRICULTURE
At segregated areas, ranchers without market data, and attempted to address with the issues of the purchasers from sustenance security and quality points of view.
Accordingly, they are not having the capacity to give institutionalized farming items on a persistent premise [9]. It is to a great extent perceived that separated sub-locales regularly experienced higher expenses of the items than the market. The cost of transportation administrations assumes a grave part in clearing up the relationship amongst openness and horticultural advancement. Costs reflected and identified with the help of purchase inputs or item showcases, the greater part of the circumstances approximated, similar to its nearness to the road density [9][10][11].
In an article "Agricultural Marketing and Access to Transport Services," Hine and Ellis [12] illuminated that many developing nations anguished from monopolistic,

LITERATURE REVIEW
Regional transportation planning is provided for the smooth transportation system of the entire region, which not only handled urban, but rural areas as well. However, due to some political influences and other inevitable reasons, the emphasis was always put on the urban area's planning in developing countries. Whereas, rural regions get problematic day by day due to negligence with respect to the availability of development funds and policy plans [13]. As a result, rural regions get "depressed" with improper road network hierarchy [14], unavailability of the public transportation system including rural roads [15], no employment opportunities [16], lack of basic health and education services [17][18][19], no land-use zoning regulations [20], the shortage of recreational spaces [21], unavailability of markets [22], no commercial centers and migrating people towards the developed regions in search of a better life [23,24].
Prior to the decade of '80s, preliminary approaches were mainly targeted transportation networks (e.g. provision of road facilities for motorized transport), and it was assumed that motorized transport is capable of solving the transport-related issues of rural households living in backward regions. After the decade of '80s, transportation emerged as a supporting tool to enhance accessibility by encouraging rural-urban linkages and flows, which are essential especially for the socio-economic welfare of deprived regions and rural communities [25]. This changed scenario has developed many concerns about the rural regional transportation system in developing countries, which failed in producing the expected development outcomes in rural regions. It was observed that the most important part of the rural-regional voyage, i.e. off road network could not be undertaken using road and car approach [26].
The availability of transportation facilities and infrastructure are pretty much essential to renovate backward rural communities [27,28]. It is also understandable that alone availability of proper transport facilities could not bring prosperity within deprived rural environments. Hereafter, many other related sectors have to play their role in the sustainable socioeconomic development of remote sub-regions [29]. The ruralregional transport involves movement of people and goods to their relevant destinations. An efficient transportation system of any area has the mixture of small and large vehicles, which are being used for the public and personal uses.
IMT can be regarded as a useful travel and transport option for rural areas [30]. IMT is an essential transportation mode, which can be provided for the basic accessibility to the rural inhabitants. IMT comprised of bicycles, rickshaws, wheelbarrows, animal-driven vehicles (carts and wagons), motorcycles, motorized threewheelers and two-wheel tractors [31]. This mode can augment inter and intra sub-regional traffic flows between urban and rural areas, together with the increase in transportation demand. As demand for transport increases larger traffic flow expected between urban and rural areas and within the regions [32].

REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROCESS
The transportation planning process is an ordered procedure of managing different regional transportation planning activities, like health, education, shopping, work, employment and recreation. The stages as used in the transportation planning process can be utilized for the efficient completion of transportation projects [41]. The different steps and stages of the regional transportation planning process can be shown in Fig. 3. The numbers are added against each stage, which further clarify the flow of stages involved in the process.
The hierarchal steps as shown in Fig. 3

REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITIES AND TRANSPORT PLANNERS
Regional transportation authorities are developed to look after the regional land-use zoning, transportation related problems, environmental conditions and overall planning and development matters with their jurisdiction. These authorities are responsible for making the plans and devise them accordingly for urban as well as rural regional areas. Concerned authorities prepare the plans,   With reference to society of transport planners [42], the duties/jobs of regional transport planners are listed as follows: Regional transportation plans are prepared to remedy the existing transport-related problems, and to provide the framework for smooth future development. The concerned transportation authorities prepared regional transport plans, which focus the problems of the rural population with respect to accessibility, and the availability of transport services in developing countries [43].

TRANSPORTATION POLICY PLANS AND RURAL ACCESSIBILITY
The development of transport-related policies and models [44] r equir ed data about household ch aracteristics, travel patter ns, land uses and socioeconomic features of the rural-regional population [45]. The wider range of rural-regional socioeconomic problems, including higher mortality rates, illiteracy poverty, dilapidated trade and agriculture infrastructure erupted because of the absence of transport-related facilities and infrastructure [50][51][52][53]. Accessibility and landuse can be considered as important tools for the revitalization of urban and backward regions [54][55][56][57][58][59].

PROPOSED POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Rural households visit many destinations daily or weekly as needed (e.g. work sites, local markets, and health or education facilities). In a rural environment, these facilities should be evenly placed alongside the roads with rural settlements at one end as shown in Fig. 4 Litman [62] proposed that accessibility standards could be increased, if facilities located close together as shown in It is foreseen that accessibility standards can be increased in this way, which could inject socioeconomic development within deprived rural subregions.

CONCLUSION
Regional transportation planning is a key determinant in the development of rural regions of the developing world.
The transportation sector provides connectivity to rural inhabitants, as they can serve their lives in a better way. Rural inhabitants need transportation services and facilities to fulfill their daily needs, including access to market, health, education, commercial centers and regional prominent settlements. The aim of writing this review article was to propose policy guidelines, focusing accessibility-related issues of rural households, living in depressed sub-regions of developing countries. Further, this study was also articulated to seek and deliver knowledge about the rural transport sector and its importance with respect to the planned development of rural sub-regions. This study is a part of the literature review conducted to provide transportation policy solutions to the destitute sub-regions of the developing countries. This review paper can provide a bunch of information to the readers about the regional transportation problems in the deprived rural regions. At the same time, this study unleashes the ideas that how transportation problems of the rural dwellers can be mitigated efficiently, which is almost seventy percent of the total population of developing countries. Moreover, to fulfil the aim of this study, and to eliminate the transportrelated problems of rural households, policy proposals were suggested to improve the accessibility criterion of the rural population. This should also be noted that suggestions or policy plans should be revised time to time, to answer the emerging issues of rural inhabitants.