Urban car policy in Europe

All European countries are facing, to various degrees, the same difficulties as far as urban travel management is concerned. These problems are congestion, pollution, public deficits, etc. Their effects are tending to increase. In order to tackle these problems, the European countries have developed different strategies with various degrees of success, but none of them has really ever lived up to the inhabitants' expectations. In order to get a better idea of these different policies and their effects, we have chosen a number of cities in Europe. These cities are either representative of the type of policy which is carried out in the country or may be leaders in that field. We have chosen countries with relatively contrasted polices which can be described more or less as follows: - - France (Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier) the users have free choice as far as the mode of transport is concerned.- - Great Britain (Cardiff, Liverpool) deregulation of public transport.- - Italy (Bologna, Milan) car access to city centre forbidden.- - Norway (Oslo) urban toll.- - Switzerland (Bern, Zurich) use of cars restrained and public transport promoted. For each different city, we have gathered data on its urban travel management policy (public transportation, use of private cars, car parking). These data are analysed in respect with supply and demand, as well as a reference to economic, demographic and institutional contexts. Our article presented here will introduce the methodology used for this investigation, as well as the main results for each transport mode. Finally we will develop some of the main conclusions in term of urban travel policies.