Projects per year
Abstract
The form and the size of cities influence their social, economic and environmental outcomes. The form of a city is itself influenced by the shape of its road network, but this relationship and how it is affected by city size are unclear. We analyse how road distances to the main centre vary across 300 European cities and how radial physical detours (i.e. the distance on the road network compared to the Euclidean distance) are affected by city size and extent. We use landuse and population data to sample potential residences and compute the fastest routes to the main centre. We find a linear relationship between road and Euclidean distances, and for the first time document an average radial physical detour of 1.343 across Europe. We then rescale distance bands so to make cities of different population size comparable and show the effect of different urban delineations. We find that physical detour ratios increase when core cities only are considered without suburbs. At the urban region scale, radial physical detours increase with city size, especially when other significant geographical factors (latitude, longitude, elevation change and proximity to coast) are controlled for. When the central part of cities only is considered, larger cities have smaller radial physical detours.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 174-194 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 4 May 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg; C17/SR/11693518 and INTER/Mobility/2020/14519030.
Keywords
- Europe
- Road network
- detours
- urban form
- urban scaling
Projects
- 1 Finished
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SCALE-IT-UP: Scaling of the Environmental Impacts of Transport and Urban Patterns
Caruso, G.
Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR)
1/09/18 → 31/08/21
Project: Research