Jonas Westin (p), Lars Westin

The Swedish Transport Administration is working on a project to adjust the speed limits on national roads. A basis for the adjustment is the Vision Zero, a road traffic safety project approved by the Swedish Parliament in 1997 with the long-term goal to radically reduce the number of fatalities or serious injuries in the road transport system. The speed limit adjustments have given rise to criticism since reduced speed limits may have negative effects on regional accessibility and regional economic development.

The purpose of the paper is to present a methodology for analysing regional consequences of changed speed limits in the road network.

Since accessibility is a multifaceted phenomenon, the analysis is based on results from two different transport model systems, SAMPERS and PIPOS. SAMPERS (the Swedish national model system for passenger transport) is a national travel demand forecast tool developed by the Swedish Transport Administration. The model uses Logsum calculations as an indicator of accessibility. PIPOS (Pinpoint Sweden) is a GIS-platform for analysing geographic accessibility developed by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. The tool can calculate distances and travel time between different geographical areas and the change in regional access to workplaces, healthcare, schools and grocery stores etc due to adjusted speed limits. By comparing the estimated effects from changes of speed limits in the road transport system using different transport model systems, the project aims to create an in-depth picture of how speed restrictions affect accessibility and regional development.

Results on regional accessibility from two scenarios are evaluated. In the first scenario, the speed limits on the national roads are chosen based on principles from the Vision Zero Initiative. In this scenario, the speed limit is reduced to 80 km/h on roads with no physical separation between traffic traveling in opposite directions. In the second scenario, accessibility is prioritized over traffic safety and the speed limit on the prioritized national road network is increased to 110 km/h. For both scenarios, a multidimensional geographical accessibility measure is calculated that varies over space depending on the geographical attributes of each location.

Combining and comparing results from both models, the paper tries to identify areas and parts of the country in the form of regions, stretches and road sections where reduced speed limits can have a particularly negative regional impact on accessibility and, in the long run, a negative impact on opportunities for regional economic development.

Valeria Bernardo (p), Xavier Fageda , Ricardo Flores-Fillol

The great weight that the car has as a means of mobility in large cities generates significant negative externalities both in terms of congestion and pollution. The goal of this paper is to examine, using a panel of large European urban areas over the period 2008-2016, the effectiveness of urban tolls and low emission zones in mitigating urban congestion. We conclude that urban tolls are successful in mitigating congestion. Instead, low emission zones are not effective. This is a very relevant result, given that such policy is being implemented extensively in Europe.

Tuba Çekiç (p), Kimberly Tatum, Joerg Knieling

Although in recent years studies on sustainable mobility have received a significant attention of scholars from different disciplines like transport researchers, geographers, economist, urban planners, there is yet an urge for a better understanding of driving forces for a more sustainable mode choice in a variety of geographical settings.
This paper presents some results from the EU-Horizon 2020-funded Cities-4-People project. It investigates key factors influencing individual travel behaviors for different travel modes, by identifying user characteristics correlated to user preferences. Primary data was collected through online surveys to achieve this aim. Quantitative data were collected to analyze the socio-demographic characteristics of citizens moving daily in the city, their routes, mobility challenges, and satisfaction with travelling. This paper will present the findings of the survey conducted in Hamburg-Altona.