Operational Urban Models


Book Description

First published in 1981. Urban modelling techniques are an established tool in assessing the possible repercussions of major changes in land use. This book is an introductory guide to the various models that have been developed and to how they can be applied in planning practice, particularly with relation to land use activities such as residential, industrial and retail development, and changes in the transport network. The author has provided a coherent and reliable introductory text which will be welcomed by students and teachers in search of a guide to current methods in the field of urban modelling.







Operational Urban Models


Book Description

First published in 1981. Urban modelling techniques are an established tool in assessing the possible repercussions of major changes in land use. This book is an introductory guide to the various models that have been developed and to how they can be applied in planning practice, particularly with relation to land use activities such as residential, industrial and retail development, and changes in the transport network. The author has provided a coherent and reliable introductory text which will be welcomed by students and teachers in search of a guide to current methods in the field of urban modelling.




Order without Design


Book Description

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities’ development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners’ dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities’ productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.




Strategic Planning for Urban Transportation


Book Description

This book focuses on the adoption of a Dynamic Performance Management (DPM) approach to support the planning and management of urban transportation systems. DPM allows one to embrace a dynamic and systemic perspective and, as a result, to frame the contribution of different stakeholders, in terms of outcome-based performance, at an inter-institutional level. The discussed DPM approach allows one to focus on the causal relationships and feedback processes that characterize urban transportation systems’ governance. Particularly, through the adoption of such an approach, it is possible to identify outcome-based performance measures that help to monitor and drive the governance network toward the creation of public value for the reference communities.Strategic Planning for Urban Transportation: A Dynamic Performance Management Approach begins with an examination of urban transportation, highlighting the main criticalities and future challenges of managing it. Next, the book examines the governance of urban transportation including how to identify and engage stakeholders. Finally, the book introduces the main application of DPM and system dynamics to urban areas, with specific regards to transportation. The framework is outlined, and a case study is provided as a practical example of how to apply the model. This book should be useful to urban transportation decision-makers at both the managerial and political level.




Handbook of Transport Geography and Spatial Systems


Book Description

The subject of this volume is the dynamic interactions between transport and the physical, economic, and human geographies it weaves through. The reader is introduced to the new spatial system technologies that are bringing geography and transport management and analysis together.




Complex Artificial Environments


Book Description

Juval Portugali The notion of complex artificial environments (CAE) refers to theories of c- plexity and self-organization, as well as to artifacts in general, and to artificial - vironments, such as cities, in particular. The link between the two, however, is not trivial. For one thing, the theories of complexity and self-organization originated in the “hard” science and by reference to natural phenomena in physics and bi- ogy. The study of artifacts, per contra, has traditionally been the business of the “soft” disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The notion of “complex artificial environments” thus implies the supposition that the theories of compl- ity and self-organization, together with the mathematical formalisms and meth- ologies developed for their study, apply beyond the domain of nature. Such a s- st position raises a whole set of questions relating to the nature of 21 century cities and urbanism, to philosophical issues regarding the natural versus the artificial, to the methodological legitimacy of interdisciplinary transfer of theories and me- odologies and to the implications that entail the use of sophisticated, state-of-t- art artifacts such as virtual reality (VR) cities and environments. The three-day workshop on the study of complex artificial environments that took place on the island of San Servolo, Venice, during April 1-3, 2004, was a gathering of scholars engaged in the study of the various aspects of CAE.




Urban Operations Research


Book Description




Modelling Freight Transport


Book Description

Freight Transport Modelling is a unique new reference book that provides insight into the state-of-the-art of freight modelling. Focusing on models used to support public transport policy analysis, Freight Transport Modelling systematically introduces the latest freight transport modelling approaches and describes the main methods and techniques used to arrive at operational models. As freight transport has grown exponentially in recent decades, policymakers now need to include freight flows in quantitative evaluations of transport systems. Whereas early freight modelling practice was inspired by passenger transport models, by now it has developed its separate stream of methods and techniques inspired by disciplines such as economic geography and supply chain management. Besides summarizing the latest achievements in fundamental research, this book describes the state of practice and advises practitioners on how to cope with typical challenges such as limitations in data availability. - Uniquely focused book exploring the key issues and logistics of freight transport modelling - Highlights the latest approaches and describes the main methods and techniques used to arrive at operational models - Summarizes fundamental research into freight transport modeling, as well as current practices and advice for practitioners facing day-to-day challenges




Urban Informatics


Book Description

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.




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