Sustainable transport in a compact city

Transport policies in many countries seek to achieve a modal shift from the private car to public transport, in order to reduce environmental externalities like (local) air pollution, stench and visual annoyance, congestion etc. At the same time, the relationship between the spatial organisation and transportation is widely acknowledged, because the spatial organisation determines which transport relations occur and how voluminous these are. The volume of the transport flows is again an important success factor for public transport. In this paper we will analyze whether and under what conditions a large scale collectivisation of urban transport is possible by adopting the compact city concept. These conditions may be found in e.g. the institutional, economie and socio-psychological field. Furthermore, some empirical results of a survey among Dutch transport experts on a more compact city and the resulting impact on urban transport will be presented. The conclusion is that the compact city is a necessary condition for a large scale collectivisation of transport, but that also many other factors are decisive for the question whether this policy be successful.