This paper deals with the issue of substitution between car and public transport. The emphasis is on two questions: - Why do improvements of the public transport system attract so few car users, at least at a national scale ? - Why do so few car users switch to public transport in response to so called "push" measures ? The answers to these questions presented in this paper amount to one common aspect, there are still too many spatial relations where the public transport supply is not a competetive alternative with respect to time, place and character among all the available alternatives for travel behaviour.
Abstract