Transport and land use in London

London is probably the city with the best travel and transport statistics, thanks to the efforts of Transport for London, published annually as the Travel in London Report series. Report 7 was recently issued.

Chapter 8 deals with the relationship between transport, travel demand and land use, both historically and for the future. The evidence is clear that development of land responds to the improved access arising from transport investment. This is of course not surprising – the earliest railways did just that. What is surprising is that conventional economic analysis of transport investment proposals disregards the increased value of land made more accessible. This is why investment appraisal based on the value of time savings to travellers is hard to relate the benefits to the economy that are the modern motivation for transport investment.

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