"Cities are expanding outwards in an unsustainable fashion. Urban sprawl is a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly evident at the fringes of cities of the developed world. The transportation required to support such low-density extra-urban habitation requires vast energy consumption and produces very high level of greenhouse gas emissions. This level of transport consumption both for personal mobility and for freight movements (including urban deliveries) runs contrary to global and European policies regarding emissions and energy reduction.The level of increase in overall transport movement in the exurbia of cities remains unknown. This project aims to fill in that gap and address policies that could mitigate its uncontrolled expansion.Although there is a recognition of the growing pace and level of exurbanisation, there is dearth of information and hard data on the level of exurbanisation and the associated transport movement.This project aims to fill that gap by not only providing up-to-date data on transport movements in the periphery of large cities but also demographic and transport trend data for four of the world’s major metropolises, London, New York, Paris and Tokyo. This data will be compared to available regional demographic and transport data in Europe. Furthermore using innovative techniques of backcasting that have been largely pioneered (extended and modified) for transportation at the Transport Studies Unit of Oxford University, it will be possible to relate this both to transport and regional planning policies.An objective will be not only to publish innovative academic research but also involve the cities and regions in the understanding and promotion of more environmentally sustainable human urban habitats. Overall, the project will aim to reach out and involve city regions in the debate of sustainability and urban sprawl, providing both hard data and policy proposals."