Interaction of transport and land use: framework for an integrated urban model

The growing general concern on limited resources (e.g. space) have led to the conviction that policy makers, that deal with urban development, need to consider their choices carefully, with respect to the effects on urban development on the long term. Models that describe the urban development provide quantitative insight in the effects of possible government policy and are a useful tool for policy makers. In the last decade new generation computers have drastically increased data handling capacity and graphically possibilities, allowing much more detail in spatial modeling. This has resulted in research efforts into urban models to quantify the effects of spatial policy. The research, which will be described in this paper, aims for an integrated approach to spatial modeling with special attention on the influence of transport networks and the role of the government. Main objective of the research is the development and application of an urban model to quantify the effects of planning policies on the spatial development. At micro level this urban model simulates the reaction of actors to changes in the urban system: the development or renewal of new urban areas and new infrastructure. These changes are imposed on the urban system by government and developers on macro and meso level. The paper will present the theoretical framework for the proposed urban model and the objectives of the research. This will be complemented with a description of spatial planning issues in the Netherlands. In the proposed urban model the spatial system (urban region) is represented by multiple linked sub-systems. Individual sub-systems are: the housing market, public facilities, the market for business real estate and the transport system. Each sub-system is represented as a market with a supply and demand side. The government and (project) developers define the supply side through spatial policy and investments. On the demand side, agents (households and companies) react at changes in these subsystems. These reactions expose themselves as individual decisions whether to move to other dwellings or to relocate businesses. Development and application of modeling techniques for the choice behavior of households and companies as entities, are main objectives in the research. The urban markets have a strong coherence for the spatial relations of each agent. Quantification of these relationships, by analyzing the transportation facilities, is important in analyzing the choice behavior of households and companies. This is why the transport system plays a central role in the urban model. For each subsystem an appropriate modeling technique has been selected, based on an exploration of available approaches in the literature and other research programs. Efforts are under way to collect and operationalize the extensive data necessary for the modeling task.

Methodological and empirical challenges in modelling residential location choices

The modelling of residential locations is a key element in land use and transport planning. There are significant empirical and methodological challenges inherent in such modelling, however, despite recent advances both in the availability of spatial datasets and in computational and choice modelling techniques. One of the most important of these challenges concerns spatial aggregation. The housing market is characterised by the fact that it offers spatially and functionally heterogeneous products; as a result, if residential alternatives are represented as aggregated spatial units (as in conventional residential location models), the variability of dwelling attributes is lost, which may limit the predictive ability and policy sensitivity of the model. This thesis presents a modelling framework for residential location choice that addresses three key challenges: (i) the development of models at the dwelling-unit level, (ii) the treatment of spatial structure effects in such dwelling-unit level models, and (iii) problems associated with estimation in such modelling frameworks in the absence of disaggregated dwelling unit supply data. The proposed framework is applied to the residential location choice context in London. Another important challenge in the modelling of residential locations is the choice set formation problem. Most models of residential location choices have been developed based on the assumption that households consider all available alternatives when they are making location choices. Due the high search costs associated with the housing market, however, and the limited capacity of households to process information, the validity of this assumption has been an on-going debate among researchers. There have been some attempts in the literature to incorporate the cognitive capacities of households within discrete choice models of residential location: for instance, by modelling households’ choice sets exogenously based on simplifying assumptions regarding their spatial search behaviour (e.g., an anchor-based search strategy) and their characteristics. By undertaking an empirical comparison of alternative models within the context of residential location choice in the Greater London area this thesis investigates the feasibility and practicality of applying deterministic choice set formation approaches to capture the underlying search process of households. The thesis also investigates the uncertainty of choice sets in residential location choice modelling and proposes a simplified probabilistic choice set formation approach to model choice sets and choices simultaneously. The dwelling-level modelling framework proposed in this research is practice-ready and can be used to estimate residential location choice models at the level of dwelling units without requiring independent and disaggregated dwelling supply data. The empirical comparison of alternative exogenous choice set formation approaches provides a guideline for modellers and land use planners to avoid inappropriate choice set formation approaches in practice. Finally, the proposed simplified choice set formation model can be applied to model the behaviour of households in online real estate environments.Open Acces

Agent-Based Urban Land Markets: Agent's Pricing Behavior, Land Prices and Urban Land Use Change

We present a new bilateral agent-based land market model, which moves beyond previous work by explicitly modeling behavioral drivers of land-market transactions on both the buyer and seller sides; formation of bid prices (of buyers) and ask prices (of sellers); and the relative division of the gains from trade from the market transactions. We analyze model output using a series of macro-scale economic and landscape pattern measures, including land rent gradients estimated using simple regression models. We first demonstrate that our model replicates relevant theoretical results of the traditional Alonso/Von Thünen model (structural validation). We then explore how urban morphology and land rents change as the relative market power of buyers and sellers changes (i.e., we move from a 'sellers' market' to a 'buyers' market'). We demonstrate that these strategic price dynamics have differential effects on land rents, but both lead to increased urban expansion

Agent-Based Urban Land Markets: Agent\'s Pricing Behavior, Land Prices and Urban Land Use Change

We present a new bilateral agent-based land market model, which moves beyond previous work by explicitly modeling behavioral drivers of land-market transactions on both the buyer and seller side; formation of bid prices (of buyers) and ask prices (of sellers); and the relative division of the gains from trade from the market transactions. We analyze model output using a series of macro-scale economic and landscape pattern measures, including land rent gradients estimated using simple regression models. We first demonstrate that our model replicates relevant theoretical results of the traditional Alonso/Von Th�nen model (structural validation). We then explore how urban morphology and land rents change as the relative market power of buyers and sellers changes (i.e., we move from a \'sellers\' market\' to a \'buyers\' market\'). We demonstrate that these strategic price dynamics have differential effects on land rents, but both lead to increased urban expansion.Location Choice, Urban Land Market, Agent-Based Computational Economics, Land Use, Land Rent Gradient, Spatial Simulation

Land use change through market dynamics : a Microsimulation of land development, the bidding process, and location choices of households and firms

textRapid urbanization is a pressing issue for planners, policymakers, transportation engineers, air quality modelers and others. Due to significant environmental, traffic and other impacts, the process of land development highlights a need for land use models with behavioral foundations. Such models seek to anticipate future settlement and transport patterns, helping ensure effective public and private investment decisions and policymaking, to accommodate growth while mitigating environmental impacts and other concerns. A variety of land use models now exist, but a market-based model with sufficient spatial resolution and defensible behavioral foundations remains elusive. This dissertation addresses this goal by developing and applying such a model. Real estate markets involve numerous interactive agents and real estate with a great level of heterogeneity. In the absence of tractable theory for realistic real estate markets, this research takes a “bottom-up” approach and simulates the behavior of tens of thousands of individual agents based on actual data. Both the supply and demand sides of the market are modeled explicitly, with endogenously determined property prices and land use patterns (including distributions of households and firms). Notions of competition were used to simulate price adjustment, and market-clearing prices were obtained in an iterative fashion. When real estate markets reach equilibrium, each agent is aligned with a single, utility-maximizing location and each allocated location is occupied by the highest bidding agent(s). This approach helps ensure a form of local equilibrium (subject to imperfect information on the part of most agents) along with useroptimal land allocation patterns. The model system was applied to the City of Austin and its extraterritorial jurisdiction. Multiple scenarios reveal the strengths and limitations of the market simulation and available data sets. While equilibrium prices in forecast years are generally lower than observed or expected, the spatial distributions of property values, new development, and individual agents are reasonable. Longer-term forecasts were generated to test the performance the model system. The forecasted households and firm distributions in year 2020 are consistent with expectations, but property prices are forecasted to experience noticeable changes. The model dynamics may be much improved by more appropriate maximum bid prices for each property. More importantly, this work demonstrates that microsimulation of real estate markets and the spatial allocation of households and firms is a viable pursuit. Such approaches herald a new wave of land use forecasting opportunities, for more effective policymaking and planning.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Models of Transportation and Land Use Change: A Guide to the Territory

Modern urban regions are highly complex entities. Despite the difficulty of modeling every relevant aspect of an urban region, researchers have produced a rich variety models dealing with inter-related processes of urban change. The most popular types of models have been those dealing with the relationship between transportation network growth and changes in land use and the location of economic activity, embodied in the concept of accessibility. This paper reviews some of the more common frameworks for modeling transportation and land use change, illustrating each with some examples of operational models that have been applied to real-world settings.Transport, land use, models, review network growth, induced demand, induced supply

The countryside in urbanized Flanders: towards a flexible definition for a dynamic policy

The countryside, the rural area, the open space, … many definitions are used for rural Flanders. Everyone makes its own interpretation of the countryside, considering it as a place for living, working or recreating. The countryside is more than just a geographical area: it is an aggregate of physical, social, economic and cultural functions, strongly interrelated with each other. According to international and European definitions of rural areas there would be almost no rural area in Flanders. These international definitions are all developed to be used for analysis and policy within their specific context. They are not really applicable to Flanders because of the historical specificity of its spatial structure. Flanders is characterized by a giant urbanization pressure on its countryside while internationally rural depopulation is a point of interest. To date, for every single rural policy initiative – like the implementation of the European Rural Development Policy – Flanders used a specifically adapted definition, based on existing data or previously made delineations. To overcome this oversupply of definitions and delineations, the Flemish government funded a research project to obtain a clear and flexible definition of the Flemish countryside and a dynamic method to support Flemish rural policy aims. First, an analysis of the currently used definitions of the countryside in Flanders was made. It is clear that, depending on the perspective or the policy context, another definition of the countryside comes into view. The comparative study showed that, according to the used criteria, the area percentage of Flanders that is rural, varies between 9 and 93 per cent. Second, dynamic sets of criteria were developed, facilitating a flexible definition of the countryside, according to the policy aims concerned. This research part was focused on 6 policy themes, like ‘construction, maintenance and management of local (transport) infrastructures’ and ‘provision of (minimum) services (education, culture, health care, …)’. For each theme a dynamic set of criteria or indicators was constructed. These indicators make it possible to show where a policy theme manifests itself and/or where policy interventions are possible or needed. In this way every set of criteria makes up a new definition of rural Flanders. This method is dynamic; new data or insights can easily be incorporated and new criteria sets can be developed if other policy aims come into view. The developed method can contribute to a more region-oriented and theme-specific rural policy and funding mechanism