Integrated Planning for the Transportation Sector in the Amazon

The availability of transportation infrastructure is a necessary element for promoting economic development. The interrelationship between the level or degree of influence that investments have on the economy has been the subject of discussion in works developed by various authors over the last few decades (Ashauer 1989 and Munnell 1990). And especially with regard to the transport sector there are significant variations in the results of analyses of this influence in different countries. It has also been noted that other factors combined with infrastructure have been responsible for encouraging development (Gillen 1996; Talley 1996; Vickerman et al. 1999; Tan 2001; Mc Cann and Shefer 2004; Holl 2004 Pereira and Andraz 2005; OECD 2005; Teixeira 2006; Yamaguchi 2006; Araújo 2006 and Kovács and Spens 2006). In Brazil as in several countries around the world it has been found that the provision of transport infrastructure was essential for promoting regional development (Diniz 2001 and Caiado 2002) but not sufficient in itself to justify the set of requirements for triggering development (Toyoshima 2002).