An Indicator-Based Calculation Tool for Rural Areas to Make Aware of Long-Term Mobility and Residential Costs

Due to high costs of building land, larger available areas in the countryside, and other personal reasons people often decide to live in or move to suburban or peripheral areas [1]. The decision of people concerning their residential locations by only taking into account a cheap building land may at first seem reasonable. However, after some time the costs for living in suburbs or in the countryside rise up, and the use of car increases due to a restricted public transport. Travel times to working places and/or cultural and leisure facilities increase when people move farther away [2]. Children may need to be taken to the kindergartens or to school by car because of restricted public transport offers [3]. The rising gas prices cause significantly higher travel costs. These are just a few facts, why a broad range of aspects should be taken into account when making residential location decisions. The following article wants to tackle this topic of long-term cost awareness due to residential location decisions and present a settlement cost calculator developed for a rural area in the Austrian pilot region of Salzburg.