Turnaround succeeded! Analysis of impacts of sustainable transport policies in Vienna and four other European capital cities

Some of the economic advanced European cities appear to have decoupled the correlation between economic growth and car ownership. The research project CREATE funded by the European Commission is aimed at identifying the reasons and framework conditions for this turnaround by analyzing historic data of five European capital cities. The City of Vienna, for example, changed their transport policies from a car-oriented transport masterplans in the past to a push-and-pull strategy by improving the public transport supply, and at the same time implementing pedestrian areas and parking restrictions in the city. The mode share of car use decreased from 40 % early in the 1990’ies to 27 % in 2014. This paper presents in particular the analysis of cause and effects in the City of Vienna and a cross-comparison among European cities analyzed in the CREATE project.