The french experience in the field of highways socio-economic observatories has allowed to set up investigation tools in wich new infrastructure is involved. The origin and the functioning of these tools are explained from the experience of a highway company, called APRR. The lessons we can learn from these observatories, their limits or impasses, lead to come back to the mechanisms of the interrelationships between infrastructure and space. With help of recent literature, we can suggest some new ways in order to examine these issues and theoretical and methodological review at crossing of regional science, industrial organisation and transport economics.
The English experience with local bus transport sector reform presents a unique example of two models of privatization cum opening to competition that were carried out in parallel. The London model is generally regarded as a success. The declining trend of bus ridership was clearly reversed, the kilometric costs were halved and the subsidies almost disappeared on average over the whole network. Opinions are divided about the model applied in the other English metropolitan areas and the current government, without calling into question the principles of the deregulation, gave to the local authorities the means of applying the London model to part of their network.
The Greater Eastern Area is a territory of ancient industries which are disappearing and it tries to reorganise round the themes of transport and logistics. The understanding of the new regional systems rests upon three elements: the concept of marginal space, the external factors and the internal factors. The Greater Eastern Area fluctuates between several scenarios and tendancies i.e., the marginalisation coming from the competition of more dynamic areas, the destination of transit space generated by the tunnel effect, and the logistics of the regions which function according to the requirements of the industrial districts.
The speed limit represents a tool to regulate the drivers’ behaviours for the common use of roads. The costs of co-ordination would be very high without the existence of such a rule. A similar result would occur with an inappropriate one. Consequently, the correct level of speed limit must be determined. The criteria of social cost defined by the school of the welfare economics can be used for this purpose. Its application to the specific case of speed yields the definition of the "optimal speed limit" concept. This article proposes an estimation of this optimal speed limit for the French interurban network for passenger cars (highways are excluded from the analysis). In the first part, we stress the unavailability of this approach for the French case and the implications of the methodology. In a second point, we expose the concept of the optimal speed limit. The theoretical model is developed in the part 3 and the results are analysed in the part 4. Different hypotheses permit to estimate different optimal speeds. Finally, the institutional environment is introduced in the analysis.