SCATTER project: an analysis of the urban sprawl phenomenon from the transport point of view

Abstract

SCATTER tackles the issue of urban sprawl, in particular in the context of cities implementing new suburban public transport services. Urban sprawl is widespread in Europe: in a growing number of cities, population and employment in central areas is declining while increasing rapidly in suburban and peripheral areas and this induces a high level of car use and, usually, congestion on roads with access to city centres. To limit the damage caused by urban sprawl in terms of congestion, air pollution and energy consumption, many European cities are implementing (or planning to implement) suburban public transport services, such as heavy or light rail. But by improving accessibility, they create an incentive for a new wave of urban sprawl. Therefore, in parallel with these new public transport services, accompanying measures have to be elaborated and implemented, in order to prevent and mitigate the sprawl phenomenon. SCATTER is a project under the European Commission DG Research, "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme" and is part of the LUTR projects cluster. The project comprises six case cities: Brussels, Stuttgart, Bristol, Helsinki, Rennes and Milan and has the final objective to provide recommendations and guidelines to European cities and design an "urban sprawl monitoring tool".