Ali SOLTANI - Research Fellow Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences University of Tsukuba Tennodai ۱- ۱- ۱, Tsukuba, Ibarak ۳۰۵-۸۵۷۳, Japan
Nader ZALI - Planning Officer Iranian Management and Planning Organization (MPO) East Azerbaijan Branch)

The igfluence of neighbourhood form on travel patterns has been most prominently discussed arising from its potential contribution to decreasing car-dependant travel. The main focus of this paper is to introduce and develop a GIs based research approach that can .help planners to find out the impacts of neighbourhood form on travel choices.. Outcomes will help policy makers to create urban environments that are better oriented to have a greater reliance on environmentally sustainable modes of transport such as walking, biking and public transport. Instinctively, it ould sound that pedestrianoriented neighbourhoods could be expected to contribute to higher walking/cycling trips and a lower proportion of trips travelled by car, but this research will help determine whether this is in fact the case. By choosing two different types of neighbourhood development of metropolitan Adelaide, Australia, two questions were answered here: how can the spatial features of neighbourhood be measured using GIs to apply in a robust statistical analysis? And how do neighbourhood patterns affect the modal choice of residents. It was assumed that modal choice was varied by neighbourhood physical characteristics when controlling for the socio-economic characteristics of individuals. The approach followed in this study has enough potential to design an inventory comparative assessment tool for planning and decision-making purposes.

Neighbourhood Form, GIs, Sustainable Travel