Concentrating the population in areas with high population density might introduce a way of sustainable transportation, if emissions caused by travelling per person per day are lower for inhabitants of high density areas than of low density areas. In this paper we investigate with data of the Flemish Travel Survey if travel behaviour differs between inhabitants of different classes of population density areas. The number of trips per person per day differs more between the different classes than the number of kilometres travelled per person per day. The most pronounced differences between the classes are found for numbers of trips /kilometres travelled by foot and by local public transport (bus, tram, metro). These travel modes are more used in areas with high population density. When these results are linked with the emissions of the transport modes used, it is found that the class with the second highest population density [1601 – 2250 inhabitants./km²] have the highest emissions per person per day. Initially, it seems as if the inhabitants of the highest density areas pollute the least. But this result is less stable when performing a sensitivity analysis. (Author/publisher)
Abstract