The aim of this article is to examine the development of transport infrastructure (modernisation of railway tracks and development of the motorway and expressway network) and its possible effects on regional development in Slovakia. Accessible transport infrastructure (mainly the motorway network) has influenced many decisions concerning the location of industrial investments. The impact of transport infrastructure on the reduction of regional disparities in Slovakia is limited mainly due to the concentration of transport infrastructure investment in the more developed regions of Slovakia. Poorer regions in eastern Slovakia and the southern part of Central Slovakia are still affected by the unfavourable level of accessibility to the transport infrastructure that creates important conditions affecting their development.

The previous chapters in this Handbook have shown that spatial development, or land use, determines the need for spatial interaction, or transport, but that transport, by the accessibility it provides, also determines spatial development. However, it is difficult to empirically isolate impacts of land use on transport and vice versa because of the multitude of concurrent changes of other factors. This poses a problem if the likely impacts of integrated land-use and transport policies to reduce the demand for travel are to be predicted.There are principally three methods to predict those impacts. The first is to ask people how they would change their location and mobility behaviour if certain factors, such as land use regulations or transport costs, would change ('stated preference'). The second consists of drawing conclusions from observed decision behaviour of people under different conditions on how they would be likely to behave if these factors would change ('revealed preference'). The third method is to simulate human decision behaviour in mathematical models.All three methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Surveys can reveal also subjective factors of location and mobility decisions, however, their respondents can only make conjectures about how they would behave in still unknown situations, and the validity of such conjectures is uncertain. Empirical studies based on observation of behaviour produce detailed and reliable results; these, however, are valid only for existing situations and are therefore not suited for the assessment of novel yet untested policies. In addition it is usually not possible to associate the observed changes of behaviour unequivocally with specific causes, because in reality several determining factors change at the same time.Mathematical models of human behaviour are also based on empirical surveys or observations. The difference is that the conclusions to be drawn from the survey and observation data are quantified. Strictly speaking, the results of mathematical models are no more universally valid than those of empirical studies but are only valid for situations which are similar to those for which their parameters were estimated. Nevertheless it is possible to transfer human behaviour represented in mathematical models within certain limits to still unknown situations. In addition, mathematical models are the only method by which the effects of individual determining factors can be analysed by keeping all other factors fixed.In this chapter recent developments in the field of operational integrated land-use transport models will be reviewed with special emphasis on their ability to test both land use and transport policies and to assess their impacts.

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Both in Europe and North America there is a growing concern about the development of urban form, especially deconcentration of urban land use in the form of urban sprawl. This has unintentional consequences such as city centre decline, increased reliance on the use of the private car, and the loss of open space. While governments try to regulate the development of urban form, there are no easy solutions. However, policies such as 'new urbanism' and 'smart growth' in North America, and 'compact city' and 'multifunctional land use' policies in Europe, though difficult to implement, have the potential to curb urban sprawl and the further growth in car use, as the cases of Portland, Oregon and Randstad Holland in The Netherlands illustrate.