Associate IEB researcher, Ilias Pasidis, is the author of the latest issue of Info-IEB, entitled “Urban Transport Externalities”. The document, based on the homonymous chapter of his doctoral thesis, analyses the collateral effects of motorways on Europe’s cities.

According to Pasidis’s study, most of the motorways constructed since the second half of the 20th century have had a suburbanization effect. He calculates that 9% of the population have abandoned the city centres and moved out to the suburbs of Europe’s metropolises as a result of these new transport facilities. The same process has not occurred, however, in Europe’s historic Roman and mediaeval cities, which concentrate all their services in the centre.

The document also explicitly refers to the effects of traffic accidents on the increase in journey time. According to the study, an accident causes journey times to be 27% longer. At the same time, however, greater congestion is associated with a reduction in the probability of accidents.