Declining household size, spreading of single detached houses, increased car ownership, population ageing, declining household density in central areas, development of secondary business areas… In reply to those well known trends, we propose a framework for the analysis and measure of varied signs of urban sprawl.Our approach draws on a formalization of the urban planning system in ten interactions providing guidance for the analysis, measure and, in the long run, modelling of the system. Our research relies on high definition household travel surveys combined, according to totally disaggregate standards, to census data reflecting the historical dynamics of settlements. The urban sprawl phenomenon is furthermore revealed through the spatio-temporal behaviour of various urban objects: dwelling units, households, individuals and locations allowing the participation in several activities. Given that foremost trends are well known, our interest relies on the spatial refinement of those analyses, now feasible on the one hand by the totally disaggregate nature of the available data and, on the other hand, by the use of new indicators revealing the evolution of the several urban objects exposing the urban sprawl phenomenon.
This paper analyses mobility as a social action to which people might give sense. Using the concepts built by the sociology of experience, we consider the experience of mobility as a combination of five mobility logics. A case study in a specific area with particular variety of experiences tends to show that on the one hand mobility appears as a potential that every individual may use according to the logics we describe. In the other hand, mobility seems to be inseparable from daily activity routines. These hypothesis lead to a critical review of transport planning practices, based on travel modelling, discrete choice theory and technical efficiency of public transport.
Can a motorway fix activities? In order to answer this question, three research directions were investigated :- spatial analysis of business location dynamics,- opinion poll of motorway perception by firms,- study of the interplay of the regional bodies.This information we gathered have been organized in a location system for understanding the machinery impacted by a new motorway. This leads to a research proposal where one does not try to isolate the motorway factor anymore, but rather considers the system conditioning business location, and analyses the role played by the motorway therein. The result is a systemic analysis board for understanding and explaining the business location machinery impacted by a new motorway.
Urban sprawl linked to the development of quick means of transport is a world-wide phenomenon. Its consequences and demonstrations are increasingly being called into question, notably in relation to the challenges of sustainable development. Among these, the development of new practices of mobility which largely promote the use of the private car raises the question of the influence of urban sprawl on road safety, which has yet been little dealt with in literature. This is studied here from the point of view of consequences of urban sprawl on ways of life, mobility, urban practices and their influences on road safety problems. This drives notably to debate the concept of "town", also the new urban reality and the means to delimit it. To deal with the question, a spatial approach to travel practices was used and allowed to define a "life territory". The study was carried out in the sector of Salon-de-Provence. The urban development of the "life territory", touched by urban sprawl, was linked to the evolution of road safety in order to bring out first conclusions about effects of urban sprawl on road safety. It seems important to integrate effects of network management and road improvement in the question of the influence of urban sprawl on road safety.
The equity of the road pricing focuses many search works: Richardson (1974), Jara-Diaz (1989), Jones (1991, 1992, 2002), Giuliano (1992), Gomez-Ibanez (1992), Banister (1994), Emmerink and alii (1995), Rietveld, Verhoef (1998), Wardman and alii (2002). The high number and their contradictory conclusions of those works imply to tack stock of their main results. The subject of this paper is to make a survey of the literature on the equity of the urban road pricing. Through display of the different search work, firstly we show the different equity senses in the case of road pricing, for finally establish or not a " common learning " on this topic. Then, we detail two central questions to judge the equity of this new measure: ermarking [Goodwin (1989), Jones (1991, 2002), Small (1992, 1993), Hau (1992), Verhoef and alii (1997)], and influence of the liberty of choice [Jones (1991), Baron, Jurney (1993), Frey, Pommerehne (1993), Schlag, Teubel (1997), Jakobsson and alii (2000)]. Finally, it is necessary to take into account the local (existing alternatives, location of households and employments, new infrastructure) and national contexts (national taxes, competitivity of the transport sector, objective of this measure).
The 1993 reform of rail transport in Great Britain led to an outright break-up of the British Rail vertically integrated monopoly. All railway activities have been isolated and divided among private operators whose relationships are determined by short term bilateral contracts.This paper examines the relevance of these contractual choices. Transaction Cost Economics, which mainly concentrates on contractual coordination issues, provides a relevant analytical framework.We show that the contractual length chosen by the reformers is not efficient in the sense of transaction cost theory since it is not adapted to the features of rail assets.