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Measuring congestion in European cities: A focus on Brussels, Seville and Krakow

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Abstract

Congestion is a major issue for cities and often a determining factor of connectivity within urban areas and intra-city interactions. It is a repercussion of the massive adoption of cars as the main transport mode and an externality related to the nature of cities as it represents the negative aspect of agglomeration, the major driving force of growth in cites. We analyse the causes and impacts of congestion in order to be able to identify viable solutions against it. For this purpose, traffic needs to be studied at fine spatial and temporal resolution levels. We measure congestion at the level of Functional Urban Area considering the full transport network in order to estimate travel times between a large set of origins-destinations as determined by a high resolution population grid (size: 500mx500m). The impact of congestion is measured with the help of the relevant TomTom indicators that provide very detailed information on the variation of speed during the day at road link level. Road traffic also affects accessibility. We measure accessibility using different operationalisations, with and without congestion, for all the populated grid cells in the functional urban areas of Brussels, Seville and Krakow. By analysing urban areas at such a fine spatial level we manage to capture the impacts of congestion in detail. This study is the first step towards the assessment and comparison of traffic in all European cities.

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  • Aris Christodoulou & Panayotis Christidis, 2020. "Measuring congestion in European cities: A focus on Brussels, Seville and Krakow," JRC Research Reports JRC118448, Joint Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc118448
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    File URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC118448
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    1. Vandenbulcke, Grégory & Steenberghen, Thérèse & Thomas, Isabelle, 2009. "Mapping accessibility in Belgium: a tool for land-use and transport planning?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 39-53.
    2. Panayotis Christidis & Juan Nicolás Ibanez Rivas, 2012. "Measuring road congestion," JRC Research Reports JRC69961, Joint Research Centre.
    3. Itf, 2019. "Benchmarking Accessibility in Cities: Measuring the Impact of Proximity and Transport Performance," International Transport Forum Policy Papers 68, OECD Publishing.
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    1. Aris Christodoulou & Panayotis Christidis, 2020. "Accessibility and congestion in European cities: Final deliverable of Task 1 of the REGIOTRANSII project," JRC Research Reports JRC122735, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Daniela- Luminița CONSTANTIN & Corina- Cristiana NASTACĂ & Emilia GEAMBASU, 2021. "Population Accessibility To Rail Services. Insights Through The Lens Of Territorial Cohesion," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 81-98, June.

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    Keywords

    accessibility; congestion; fine-resolution analysis; European cities; Functional Urban Area; traffic;
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