Urban form affects the daily travel demand and possibilities for use of different travel modes. As transport sector is one of the increasing sectors using energy, the management of passenger car traffic growth is one of the biggest challenges in the near future. Travel patterns vary significantly depending on e.g. distance to city centre or local centres, availability of local services and public transport level of service. Urban form has in many recent studies been divided into different types of areas and zones according to the public transport services and availability of other services. The zones have usually been based on location of activities and development of transport system.

Urban zones have in Finland been studied in several urban areas. However, the features of the zones have not been studied in detail and there has been a lack of uniform criteria for the zones to be applied in polycentric urban areas and urban areas of different sizes. In addition, there is a need for information of the travel patterns on the different zones.