With rising populations and incomes, metropolitan areas are having to deal with ever-increasing demands for personal mobility. This paper compares and contrasts the transport strategies that have been adopted in selected world cities and considers their success in managing traffic growth and addressing the deleterious effects of congestion. The research looks at the key drivers of demand in the metropolitan areas of London, Barcelona, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo to understand how their travel patterns have evolved and the magnitude of the transport problems they face. It considers the different policy choices that have been made in the past five years or so, and considers their impact in terms of managing demand using indicators of: modal shares; levels of car use; and congestion (using proxy indicators such as vehicle flows and average speeds). A key aspect of the findings is the identification of factors that have contributed to cities' success, such as supportive institutional structures, political will, funding options, and the choice and quality of alternative modes. This contains important lessons for policy makers seeking to implement demand restraint measures in their own cities. Consideration is also given to policies that have not worked and the reasons behind their apparent failure which are often caused of a lack of 'joined-up thinking' between government departments. This work is part of a larger study for the Commission for Integrated Transport which uses statistical benchmarking and case studies to examine the strategies and performance of 14 cities in meeting the transport needs of their communities and in managing traffic growth. For the covering abstract please see ITRD E135207.
Abstract