The European Green Paper on Urban Mobility

The 2006 mid-term review of the European Transport White Paper heralded plans for a new European Green Paper on Urban Transport in order to “identify potential European added value to action at local level” (CEC, 2006: p14).1 After a 5-month consultation process between January and June 2007 with European, national, regional and local stakeholders, the Green Paper on Urban Transport was published in September 2007 (CEC, 2007). The result is a document which sets out a series of questions and issues, rather than any new policy instruments or solutions. It provides little clarity about the precise future role of the European Union in urban mobility policy, and the potential European added value

European Perspectives

This new regular section looks at emerging issues with a definite pan-European focus and high significance for transport and/or infrastructure research. Three general inter-related themes will be examined in the new section − policy , practice and research . The connections between these themes will also be the focus of the section. Sometimes the section will primarily address one of these themes and at other times it will address two or all three of the themes. The policy theme will include recent developments in European transport policy and also recent developments in environmental, regional development and economic policy where there are specific implications for transport. The practice theme will include issues such as European benchmarking and pilot projects as well as recent developments in different transport industries across Europe (shipping, aviation and rail for example) and prospects for the future. The research theme will include topics such as recent developments in European research priorities and funding opportunities for transport and/or infrastructure research

Trends in Transport Intensity across Europe

Transport energy use and transport volumes have closely followed trends in economic activity over recent decades. This is not the case however for total energy consumption (across all sectors of the economy), which is not now increasing in many countries even though economic growth is still taking place. Some kind of decoupling has occurred. If this decoupling were to take place in the transport sector, it would present opportunities to reduce the consumption of energy and other resources without reducing economic competitiveness. Decoupling would also offer opportunities for the reduction of congestion and transport emissions. Consequently, there is increasing interest in how decoupling can occur. Although the decoupling of economic activity and total energy consumption has been reported for a number of European countries, the extent to which transport demand and economy activity has been decoupled has not been examined in so much detail. Using international statistical sources for all European countries and detailed data for the UK, this paper explores the extent to which transport demand is currently linked with economic indicators (such as Gross Domestic Product and Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) and examines whether this link has changed over time. The paper contributes to understanding about the definition of transport intensity and the relationships between transport demand and economic activity in Europ

European Perspectives:

Urban transport systems are critical elements of the urban fabric. They ensure that people have access to goods, services, employment and recreation opportunities, that freight circulates efficiently and they enable local economies to flourish. However, if the high density of buildings is the first defining characteristic of towns and cities, then high volumes of traffic is now the second. Traffic has significant impacts on the environment and on the health of urban citizens, as well as on the overall quality of life in towns. Rising congestion levels are hampering mobility, with increasing costs for the economy (0.5% of Community GDP for road traffic congestion, rising to 1% by 2010)

European Perspectives

This new regular section looks at emerging issues with a definite pan-European focus and high significance for transport and/or infrastructure research. Three general inter-related themes will be examined in the new section – policy , practice and research . The connections between these themes will also be the focus of the section. Sometimes the section will primarily address one of these themes and at other times it will address two or all three of the themes. The policy theme will include recent developments in European transport policy and also recent developments in environmental, regional development and economic policy where there are specific implications for transport. The practice theme will include issues such as European benchmarking and pilot projects as well as recent developments in different transport industries across Europe (shipping, aviation and rail for example) and prospects for the future. The research theme will include topics such as recent developments in European research priorities and funding opportunities for transport and/or infrastructure research

Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Explaining Dutch Transit-Oriented Development Challenges

As a planning concept, transit-oriented development (TOD) has become popular in the Netherlands over the last few decades. However, the transition from planning concept to development practice has been fraught with difficulties. Where TOD projects have been implemented, they have often met with limited success in terms of livability and market viability. This paper examines TOD-related efforts in the Netherlands and the reasons for their difficulties up to now. The analysis is built around an analytical framework, which considers the role of ‘ideas’, ‘interests’, and ‘institutions’, as well as their interaction, in affecting the outcomes of these TOD efforts

A Critical Deconstruction of the Concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD)

The concept of Transit-Oriented Development, or TOD, has generated much interest in Europe over the last decade. Because the term “TOD” originated in the United States, this model is often assumed to be a recent import from North American cities. This paper examines how planning policies in three European capital city-regions – Amsterdam, Stockholm and Vienna – have been shaped by the ideas and principles underlying TOD since the Second World War. All three case studies are located in countries with mature systems of spatial planning: the Netherlands (Western Europe), Sweden (Northern Europe), and Austria (Central Europe). The paper illustrates that TOD, albeit called by other names or not named at all in policy, has been an intrinsic principle of planning in Austria, the Netherlands, and Sweden and in their respective capitals for decades. Far from being a recent North American invention, TOD has its roots in Europe and dates back many decades. Clearly, the enthusiasm with which TOD in its recent embodiment has been received in the US and Canada has done much to highlight and promote the concept over recent decades in Europe

The Relationships between Urban Form and Travel Patterns. An International Review and Evaluation

There is a growing body of research concerned with the relationship between urban form and travel patterns. Studies originate from a diversity of sources, and encompass a variety of geographic scales and locations. To add to this diversity, many different characteristics of urban form to have been examined in these studies, and travel patterns have been measured in a number of different ways. This paper brings together in a systematic way the results of many recent studies on urban form and travel patterns over the last 20 years. As well as this systematic approach, other key aspects of this review paper include the identification of where research has been concentrated (and where there are gaps in research), and in the critique of the studies, which includes issues of data accuracy, reliability and quality, the applicability of research methods and data interpretation. The critique focuses in some detail on the interaction of socio-economic factors with urban form and travel patterns