A new study conducted for the world bank by Murdoch university institute for science and technology policy has demonstrated that publictransport is more efficient than cars. The study compared the proportion of wealth poured into transport by thirty seven cities around the world. This included both the public and private costs of building maintaining and using a transport system. The study found that the western Australian city of Perth is a good example of a city with minimal public transport as a result 17% of its wealth went into transport costs. Some European and Asian cities on the other hand spent as little 5% Professor Peter Newman pointed out that these more efficient cities were able to put the difference into attracting industry and jobs or creating a better place to live. According to professor newman the larger Australian city of Melbourne is a rather unusual city in this short of comparison he describes it as two cities A European city surrounded by a car department one Melbourne large tram networks has made car use in the inner city much lower but the outer have the same car based structure as most other Australian cities the explosion in demand for accommodation in the inner suburbs of Melbourne suggests a recent change in many peoples preferences as to where they live.

Newman says this a new broader way of considering public transport issue. In the past the case of public transport has been made on this basis of environmental and social justice consideration rather than economics Newman however believes the study demonstrates that the auto department model in efficient as well as environmental terms.Bicycle use was not included in the study but Newman noted that the two most bicycle friendly cities considered were very efficient even though their public transport systems were responsible but not special.

It is common for supports of road networks to reject the model of cities with good public transport are arguing that such system would not work in their particular city. One objection is climate some people say their city could not make more use of public transport because it is either too hot or too cold. Newman rejects this pointing out that public transport has been successful in both Toronto and Singapore and I  fact he has checked the use of cars against climate and found zero correlation.When it came to other physical features road lobbies are on stronger ground for example Newman accepts it would be hard for a city as hilly as Auckland to develop a really good rail network however he points out that both Hong Kong have managed to make a success of their systems heavy and light respectively though there are few cities in the world as hilly.

In fact Newman believe the main reason for adopting one sort of transport over another politics the more democratic the process the more public transport is favored he considers Portland a perfect example of this some years ago, federal money was granted to build a new road however local pressure groups forced a referendum over weather to spread the money on the light rail instead more and more rail systems have been put in dramatically changing the nature of the city Newman notes that Portland has about the same population as Perth and had a similar population density at the time.In the UK travel to work had been stable for at least six centuries with people avoiding situation that required them to spend more then half an hour traveling to work. trans and cars initially allowed people to live at greater distances without taking longer to reach their destination however public infrastructure did not keep with urban sprawl causing massive congestion problems which now make commuting times far higher. There is a widespread belief that increasing wealth people to live further out where car are the only viable transport the example of European cities refutes that they are often than their American counterparts but have not generated the same level of car use in wealthier. A new study make this point even more starkly Developing cities in a Asia such as Jakarta make more use of the car than wealthy Asian cities such as Tokyo and Singapore in cities that developed later the world bank of Asian Development bank the building of public transport and people have been forced to rely on cars creating the massive traffic jams that characterize those cities.

Newman believes one of the best studies on how cities built for cars might be converted to rail use is the Urban village report which used Melbourne as an example it found that pushing everyone into the city centre was not the best approach instead the proposal advocated the creation of urban villages at hundreds or sites mostly around railway stations. It was once assumed that improvement in telecommunications would lead to more dispersal in the population as people were no longer forced into cities however the ISTP teams research demonstrates that he population and job density of cities rose or remained constant in the 1980s after decades of decline the explanation for this seems to be that it is valuable to place people working in related fields together the the new world will largely depend on human creativity and creativity flourishes where people come together face to face.