ABSTRACT
The study of the role that energy and energy prices play in urban development raises a remarkable question, which is not answered in the same way the world over. That question is: does a rise in transportation costs to the level they have attained, for instance in continental Europe, invariably have only negative implications, or are there also effects on the volume and structure of traffic as well as on the physical structure of the town that are beneficial to town life? One basic principle of road-pricing is that road users have to pay more, the more they make use of roads with high traffic intensity. Through such road-pricing, traffic will tend to redistribute itself to less occupied routes or less occupied hours. In that way, some say, not only traffic structure but also, in the longer run, the location patterns of households and companies will be affected favourably. Higher fuel costs may have similar if not identical effects, as may become evident from what follows.
