The Difference between Planning and Design

Typically, planning repeats a number of key questions until the answers remain unchanged. For transport infrastructure, questions may include:

• Is a road/railway that connects towns A and B necessary or desirable?

• What capacity and/or standard should it be?

• What route should it take?

• What will it cost?

• How much CO2 will be produced from construction and future traffic?

Since information regarding the costs may change throughout this process, (a), (b), and (c) may be repeated to incorporate new information. This may lead to different decisions, requiring a full or partial reassessment as well as another iteration of the questions.

Planning determines where the route should be located and obtains preliminary estimates of the cost: Design defines the details that allow the route to be constructed and provides more accurate cost estimates.

Planning is where macro impacts can be identified and assessed: Design is where any micro effects can be evaluated.

The difference between planning and design affects how details are viewed. The planner is concerned with the big picture and the designer with the detail. An alignment that is good from a planner’s perspective will be deficient from a designer’s if the alignment fails to address critical details. The purpose of the Quantm system is to produce superior planning alignments for the designer to use as a starting point for design.

Next topic: Understand the Process