Guest lecture - Petter Næss

Dr. Petter Næss, Professor at NMBU, Norway gives a lecture titled How and why do residential and workplace location in metropolitan areas influence travel behavior? Evidence from recent research in Norwegian urban areas.

Abstract

Based on evidence mainly from the Norwegian mixed-methods research project RESACTRA, supplemented with some material from another recent project (URBANEFF), the presentation illuminates how residential and workplace location, local-area density and other built environment characteristics around the dwelling or workplace influence different aspects of travel behavior. The studies generally show that the location of dwellings and workplaces relative to the center structure of the metropolitan area, and particularly the distance to the main city center, is more important than local-area built environment characteristics to travel behavior. Urban spatial structures influence travel behavior in interaction with time-geographical constraints and individuals’ transport rationales. The dominant rationales for location of activities imply that travel distances are influenced more by residential distance to the main city center than by its distance to local centers. The dominant rationales for travel mode choice encourage suburbanites and employees at suburban workplaces to choose car as their travel mode more frequently than inner-city dwellers and employees, with opposite effects for transit and non-motorized travel. Polycentric intra-metropolitan urban development is therefore less favorable than densification close to the main city center if the aim is to reduce travel distances, discourage car driving and promote public and non-motorized travel. The results provide strong support of Norwegian national policies of urban densification as a planning strategy to curb the growth in urban motoring. However, although the influences of urban structure on travel show many similarities across cities, there are also important differences reflecting variations in center structure (predominantly mono- or polycentric) and population size. The magnitude of the influences of various urban structural characteristics on travel behavior are thus highly context-dependent.

About Petter Næss

Petter Næss is Dr. Ing., architect and Professor in Planning in Urban Regions at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He has contributed theoretically on urban sustainability, philosophy of science within the field of spatial planning, and methodology within infrastructure planning. Næss has published extensively on urban sustainability issues covering a wide, interdisciplinary perspective, including sustainability-relevant impacts of land use and the built environment as well as societal conditions and processes influencing urban development (including the role of public planning). A special interest in his in the research is relationship between urban structures and transport, which he has investigated mainly in the Nordic countries, but also in China and Southern Europe. As part of this research, Næss has made several theoretical contributions concerning the causal status of built environment characteristics in its relations with travel behavior. Over the last two decades, Næss has developed and refined a methodology for studies into influences of urban structures on travel differing from mainstream research by combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, applying a multi-theoretical approach and explicitly emphasizing ontological and epistemological reflection.