Impact on Car Ownership of Local Variation in Access to Public Transport

This paper reports on a project funded by the Volvo Research Foundations. It is international in nature and focuses on the impact of urban public transport, and light rail in particular, on restraining the growth of (or even reducing) local car ownership rates. The recent Censuses of the UK (2001) and France (1999) make these two countries particularly suitable, but the project examined other countries and urban transport systems too. We were especially interested in the `high quality' alternatives to light rail, including other urban rail, or enhanced forms of bus. Especially in Britain, the investment costs in new light rail systems have led to Government disquiet and reluctance to approve funding. The empirical work consists of econometric estimates using small area data, mainly from Censuses, reinforced by GIS mapping of urban transport access on the local small area. 300 metre and 600 metre zones of good access can then be used in the econometrics, alongside socioeconomic indicators of the economically active population. Results from a wide range of cities suggest that good access does indeed reduce car ownership below what would be expected given the local socioeconomic profile. These findings have important implications for environmental and transport policy

Urban unemployment in the EU, tertiary sector employment growth and urban size

The paper uses REGIO data to study recent change in unemployment in major urban areas of Europe. Previous results suggested a significant role for tertiarisation in employment, and a systematic association with urban size. This work is carried forward using more recent data on urban areas at NUTS3 level. Patterns in variation of unemployment across countries and city sizes are discussed. Econometric estimates going beyond OLS are discussed using LIMDEP software. Details on long term unemployment are only available at NUTS2 level, but this still provides useful insight for the largest EU urban areas for which the NUTS2 region is a useful approximation to the urban area. Some policy implications are also discussed, in the light of the recent debate over `Euro-sclerosis' in the labour market.

Gemini-north multiobject spectrograph: integral field unit

NRC publication: Ye