De congestión y movilidad en el área metropolitana de Bilbao

Abstract

Avoiding the waste of resources, internalizing the external effects due to traffic congestion, has been a recurrent concern for economists during at least the last thirty years. On the one hand, microeconomics provides a rigorous theoretical framework for analyzing externalities, e.g. congestion. On the other hand, technological advances allow its almost immediate application with varying degrees of sophistication; besides, models of transport and land uses, like the one conveniently adjusted and calibrated here for the Bilbao metropolitan area, allow people to simulate modal distributions, flows, "optimal" tolls before and after the operation of the metropolitan underground, etc. The results widen their chances for planning integrated actions concerning the urban transport system, compatible with a sustainable development and a rational distribution among land uses in the medium term.