Turnaround succeeded! Analysis of impacts of sustainable transport policies in Vienna and four other European capital cities

Abstract

Some of the economic advanced European cities appear to have decoupled the correlation between economic growth a car ownership and car use. The research project CREATE funded by the European Commission is aimed at identifying the reasons and framework conditions for this turnaround by analyzing historic data of five European capital cities (Vienna, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin). Each of these cities implemented different strategies to achieve a more sustainable transport network influencing the mobility behavior, in particular, car use. The City of Vienna, for example, changed their transport policies from a more car-oriented transport masterplans in the past to a push-and-pull strategy by improving the public transport supply, mainly based on the extension of the underground network, and at the same time implementing pedestrian areas and parking restrictions in the city, which are still enlarged continuously. The mode share of car use (driver and passenger) decreases from 40 % early in the 1990’ies to 27 % in 2014. However, the ambiguous goal of the current city development plan is to reach a share of car use of 20 % in 2025. However, despite these core elements of transport policies a lot of supporting transport measures and other framework conditions need to be considered. This paper presents the analysis of cause and effects in the City of Vienna and a cross-comparison among all five European cities analyzed in the CREATE project.