In 2012, the City of Vienna capped off several decades of heavy investment in the expansion and modernization of its already-extensive public transport system with a dramatic reduction of annual transit ticket prices.
Since 1993, the City has also adopted, district-by-district, a system of resident preferences in the allocation of on-street parking, built around sharply increased prices and tighter time limits for non-residents. In addition to implementing parking management, Vienna traffic calmed three-quarters of its residential streets, reducing speed limits to 30 km/hr or less and in some cases barring through-traffic entirely. To complement these gains, the City further developed an extensive network of bikeways, along with rules enabling bicyclists to be among the major beneficiaries of traffic-calming. Concomitant with this set of reinforcing, integrated measures, Vienna experienced a remarkable shift in mode share from 1993 and 2013.
The car share of trips fell by a third (from 40 to 27 percent) while public transport’s share increased by 10 percentage points (from 29 to 39 percent) and bike share doubled (from 3 to 6 percent).