diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGenerator.php b/src/Symfony/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGenerator.php
index 28aca47b38..9c68dc1d26 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGenerator.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGenerator.php
@@ -28,9 +28,33 @@ use Symfony\Component\Routing\Exception\MissingMandatoryParametersException;
 class UrlGenerator implements UrlGeneratorInterface
 {
     protected $context;
+
+    /**
+     * This array defines the characters (besides alphanumeric ones) that will not be percent-encoded in the path segment of the generated URL.
+     *
+     * PHP's rawurlencode() encodes all chars except "a-zA-Z0-9-._~" according to RFC 3986. But we want to allow some chars
+     * to be used in their literal form (reasons below). Other chars inside the path must of course be encoded, e.g.
+     * "?" and "#" (would be interpreted wrongly as query and fragment identifier),
+     * "'" and """ (are used as delimiters in HTML).
+     */
     protected $decodedChars = array(
-        // %2F is not valid in a URL, so we don't encode it (which is fine as the requirements explicitly allowed it)
+        // the slash can be used to designate a hierarchical structure and we want allow using it with this meaning
+        // some webservers don't allow the slash in encoded form in the path for security reasons anyway
+        // see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4069002/http-400-if-2f-part-of-get-url-in-jboss
         '%2F' => '/',
+        // the following chars are general delimiters in the URI specification but have only special meaning in the authority component
+        // so they can safely be used in the path in unencoded form
+        '%40' => '@',
+        '%3A' => ':',
+        // these chars are only sub-delimiters that have no predefined meaning and can therefore be used literally
+        // so URI producing applications can use these chars to delimit subcomponents in a path segment without being encoded for better readability
+        '%3B' => ';',
+        '%2C' => ',',
+        '%3D' => '=',
+        '%2B' => '+',
+        '%21' => '!',
+        '%2A' => '*',
+        '%7C' => '|',
     );
 
     protected $routes;
@@ -129,7 +153,7 @@ class UrlGenerator implements UrlGeneratorInterface
                     }
 
                     if (!$isEmpty || !$optional) {
-                        $url = $token[1].strtr(rawurlencode($tparams[$token[3]]), $this->decodedChars).$url;
+                        $url = $token[1].$tparams[$token[3]].$url;
                     }
 
                     $optional = false;
@@ -144,14 +168,15 @@ class UrlGenerator implements UrlGeneratorInterface
             $url = '/';
         }
 
+        // do not encode the contexts base url as it is already encoded (see Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request)
+        $url = $this->context->getBaseUrl().strtr(rawurlencode($url), $this->decodedChars);
+
         // add a query string if needed
         $extra = array_diff_key($originParameters, $variables, $defaults);
         if ($extra && $query = http_build_query($extra, '', '&')) {
             $url .= '?'.$query;
         }
 
-        $url = $this->context->getBaseUrl().$url;
-
         if ($this->context->getHost()) {
             $scheme = $this->context->getScheme();
             if (isset($requirements['_scheme']) && ($req = strtolower($requirements['_scheme'])) && $scheme != $req) {
diff --git a/tests/Symfony/Tests/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGeneratorTest.php b/tests/Symfony/Tests/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGeneratorTest.php
index 17b4d3c3bf..c653d29dbc 100644
--- a/tests/Symfony/Tests/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGeneratorTest.php
+++ b/tests/Symfony/Tests/Component/Routing/Generator/UrlGeneratorTest.php
@@ -206,6 +206,22 @@ class UrlGeneratorTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
         $this->assertEquals('/app.php/foo', $this->getGenerator($routes)->generate('test', array('default' => 'foo')));
     }
 
+    public function testUrlEncoding()
+    {
+        // This tests the encoding of reserved characters that are used for delimiting of URI components (defined in RFC 3986)
+        // and other special ASCII chars. These chars are tested as static text path, variable path and query param.
+        $chars = '@:[]/()*\'" +,;-._~&$<>|{}%\\^`!?foo=bar#id';
+        $routes = $this->getRoutes('test', new Route("/$chars/{varpath}", array(), array('varpath' => '.+')));
+        $this->assertSame('/app.php/@:%5B%5D/%28%29*%27%22%20+,;-._~%26%24%3C%3E|%7B%7D%25%5C%5E%60!%3Ffoo=bar%23id'
+            . '/@:%5B%5D/%28%29*%27%22%20+,;-._~%26%24%3C%3E|%7B%7D%25%5C%5E%60!%3Ffoo=bar%23id'
+            . '?query=%40%3A%5B%5D%2F%28%29%2A%27%22+%2B%2C%3B-._%7E%26%24%3C%3E%7C%7B%7D%25%5C%5E%60%21%3Ffoo%3Dbar%23id',
+            $this->getGenerator($routes)->generate('test', array(
+                'varpath' => $chars,
+                'query' => $chars
+            ))
+        );
+    }
+
     protected function getGenerator(RouteCollection $routes, array $parameters = array())
     {
         $context = new RequestContext('/app.php');