An analysis of data from London and Paris, using directly comparable methods of expressing all results in terms of distance from the centre, is undertaken of the following variables: population density, mean household income, car ownership, median daily travel time per traveller, and energy consumption. It is argued that the results demonstrate that population density and public transport provision are far less important influences on energy consumption than car ownership, and that it follows that economising energy consumed per car is far more important than policies concerned with decentralisation or public transport service levels. The importance of the rail network in setting road network speeds is also noted.

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"Drawing on a disparate range of sources and viewing the question from several perspectives, an attempt is made to trace the development of London over the period since 1800. An account of the physical expansion and population growth is outlined, with ¿London' defined at a number of distinct scales. Attention is first focused on London as a metropolis, and various modelling techniques are used to illustrate the nature of metropolitan expansion. Consideration is given to the possibility that the changing spatial distribution of population through migration may be likened to a well-known process in physics. This is followed by an analysis of London at the broader scale of a region, with similar modelling techniques being employed. Finally, the question is raised as to whether London can still be meaningfully viewed as a metropolitan entity or whether a regional perspective is now more appropriate." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER)

The transport policy currently followed in many European cities seems to be a combination of investments in public transport in order to increase, or at least maintain, its market share, and road building in order to keep up with expected traffic growth. Apparently, there is a prevalent belief among policy makers that increased road capacity in urban areas does not in itself cause any growth in car traffic worth mentioning. Such a belief neglects the simple economic theory of supply and demand, as well as more specific theories about the dynamics of traffic under congested conditions. An empirical study of commuting patterns in two transport corridors in Oslo, Norway, shows that a considerable proportion of commuters are sensitive to changes in the speed of the respective modes of transportation. The mode chosen depends to a large extent on the ratio of door‐to‐door travel times by car and transit. Freer flowing traffic in the road network will induce a higher proportion of commuters to travel by car. Conversely, faster public transport will reduce the proportion of car commuters, but the effects of such improvements will be offset if road capacity is simultaneously increased. In addition to the relative speeds of car and transit, the parking conditions at the workplace are of great importance to the choice of transport mode.

Since the oil crisis of 1973, a number of studies have been made in various countries of the effects of the rise in petrol prices on the level of traffic flow, but rather fewer have attempted to delineate the complex chain of reactions within the car market set off by this impulse. We attempt to do this, using data from the UK.Since 1966 during the prediction stage of the first London Transportation Study it became obvious that low income and high income households had different rates of growth of car ownership, mainly because low income households bought cheap, old cars which vary in quantity and price differently from expensive, new cars. The Greater London Council therefore sponsored a study of car prices by age and size, starting from 1957 annually, and since the oil crisis, evaluated monthly. This has enabled us to examine the strong change in trend that had occurred, with large cars depreciating 15% per annum more than the smallest. The quantities of cars of each size registered each month are available from national statistics and this enables us to say that the previous 1% per annum increase in car size was arrested, with new cars becoming substantially smaller.A model of the car market has been developed which relates on the one hand the price distribution of cars by age, and on the other hand the price distribution of the stock ot cars owned at each household income level. Via the expenditure on car purchase at each household income level and the distribution of the length of time between purchase and resale of cars, a fully dynamic model has been developed to relate expenditure flow and stock. This enables us to test the effect of different trends on the dynamic equilibrium in the car market.The implications of the two trends noted above on the prediction of future car ownership growth are discussed, with the standstill since the oil crisis attributed to petrol prices via the split in household expenditure between purchase and use. The Effect of the Oil CrisisSince the awakening of the environmental conscience in the late sixties we have all become more aware of the consequences of unbridled growth in the demand for personal transportation at the expense of the public. Since Forrester's "Urban Dynamics," we have been able to bring into a sharper focus the complex, interacting nature of our economies, and how short-run