Urban mobility projects rarely fail due to a lack of vision. They fail when systems collide. Edmondson Planning Strategies is a specialized consultancy led by David Alan Edmondson (AICP, PMP), focused on the friction points of implementation: where engineering meets planning, where policy meets reality, and where modern mobility meets historic preservation.

We are not a generalist design firm. We operate as an independent auditor and technical translator for your work. We have the fluency to navigate the engineer’s constraints, the planner’s vision, the politician’s concerns, and the community’s demands. We apply the rigor of project management to the complexity of urban systems, identifying the hidden liabilities and opportunities in your infrastructure plans before capital is committed. We don’t just deliver documents; we deliver viability.

Our core competencies

• Implementation Assurance: We assess your plans to ensure they are robust enough to withstand scrutiny. Using a Results-Based Management (RBM) framework, we translate aspirational policy goals into the specific technical language that makes progress happen.

• Heritage Systems Integration: We negotiate the peace between modern mobility and historic preservation. Rather than viewing preservation mandates as obstacles, we treat them as fixed anchors that define the geometry of your system.

• Governance & Capacity Building: A transport system is only as good as the agency managing it. We focus on institutional empowerment, building the SOPs and human infrastructure that allows your team to sustain operations long after the consultants leave.

National Decentralization Framework

Client: Philippines Department of Transportation (DOTr)
The Challenge: As part of a federal decentralization initiative, the DOTr needed to devolve transit planning authority to local municipalities that lacked technical capacity.
The Solution: We acted as the technical bridge between national policy and local implementation. In a rapid two-month engagement, we drafted the National Bus Service Planning Guidelines, creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for municipalities to audit and plan their own transit networks. We designed a crash-course capacity-building curriculum to translate complex network principles into actionable steps for local planners more used to roads than jeepneys.

Predictive Demand Modelling

Client: HOVR Systems
The Challenge: An emerging mobility provider needed to validate their business case against extreme-use scenarios before launching service.
The Solution: We provided the data rigor required for investment confidence. Using a Poisson distribution model, we stress-tested service capacity against the “worst case” calendar days, determining the specific fleet density required to maintain service levels during peak demand events.

Strategic Visualization

The Challenge: High-stakes transit redesigns often fail because stakeholders cannot visualize the realities of their existing network.
The Solution: Working with a top-tier transit consultancy, we translated complex routing and population data into intuitive basemaps for Sandy, Oregon. These ensured the public and planners were able to see, for the first time, the realities of their system and plan from a place of shared understanding.

System Legibility as User Interface

Client: Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA)
The Challenge: A rural transit system in Tupelo, Mississippi, struggled with low ridership due to confusion and complex routing.
The Solution: We treated the system map as a user interface problem. We redesigned the public-facing materials to maximize clarity, transforming a complex operational schedule into an accessible, user-friendly navigation tool. The methodology was later expanded to analyze transit access gaps in Georgetown, Kentucky.