Sustainable Mobility and Living in Alpine Metropolitan Regions

This paper is to present an explanatory approach for the description and analysis of mobility and its impacts on spatial development and accessibility in Alpine Metropolitan Regions. A special focus is laid on sustainable development emphasizing the economic, environmental and social aspects and impacts of mobility. Several approaches that have been developed and discussed during recent years were mainly focused either on areas outside Alpine Regions or special functions and types of transport in mountainous areas (e.g. transit traffic, leisure traffic). Many strategies for sustainable development are addressing the environmental impacts of traffic but neglect the social aspects of mobility. This paper, however, presents a comprehensive approach combining the different mobility demands that determine traffic patterns in Alpine Regions with the requirements of sustainability not only in the ecologic and economic but especially in the social perspective.