The literature contains a plethora of land use indicators, the most prominent
being (a) size, density and proportion of population living along the corridor;
(b) percent of built-up land by distance from the median line of the corridor; and
(c) percent of new development on ‘‘brown field’’ (previously developed) land.
For the purpose of corridor benchmarking, it was decided to focus our analysis
on urban areas (with their significant transport-related external costs) and environmentally-sensitive
areas (due to potential effects on nature and endangered
species). We believe that these two aspects combine to provide a sufficiently good
picture of the external costs related to land use that transport activities impose on
the general public.