Transportation, settlement structure and journey to work in western Norway

Abstract

The first part of the article presents and discusses recent development trends in population and settlement structure in western Norway, emphasizing the increasing and changing role of the urban and central-place system. The second part deals more specifically with the interrelationships between population and places of residence on the one hand and places of work and journey to work (commuting) on the other, regression analyses being the main research tool. The models are tested on commuting data from the Stavanger area. In the third part the relationships are tested empirically by looking at some concrete examples from the Bergen area where three island municipalities have been directly connected with the city of Bergen through the construction of bridges.