Modelling requirements for local transport plans in the UK

The aim of the paper is to provide a number of recommendations for use of transport and land use planning models in the formulation of local transport plans. It is based on a study of Local Transport Plans (LTPs) in England. LTPs are required by central government (Department for Transport) as part of its process of allocating funds to local authorities. The first round of LTPs (for which 85 authorities submitted plans) was carried out in 1999-2000 and the next round will be required in 2005. Authorities are also required to produce Annual Progress Reports (APRs) summarising the progress made towards meeting the objectives laid out in the LTP. The research was carried out in two stages, the first being a review of current guidance, publicly available Local Transport Plans and other relevant material, the second being a series of case study interviews with five local authorities. From these two processes a number of recommendations on modelling requirements and use of models were put forward classified by the size of the local authorit

EV charging stations and RES-based DG: A centralized approach for smart integration in active distribution grids

Renewable Energy Sources based (RES-based) Dispersed Generation (DG) and Electrical Vehicles (EVs) charging systems diffusion is in progress in many Countries around the word. They have huge effects on the distribution grids planning and operation, particularly on MV and LV distribution grids. Many studies on their impact on the power systems are ongoing, proposing different approaches of managing. The present work deals with a real application case of integration of EVs charging stations with ES-based DG. The final task of the integration is to be able to assure the maximum utilization of the distribution grid to which both are connected, without any upgrading action, and in accordance with Distribution System Operators (DSOs) needs. The application of the proposed approach is related to an existent distribution system, owned by edistribuzione, the leading DSO in Italy. Diverse types of EVs supplying stations, with diverse diffusion scenarios, have been assumed for the case study; various Optimal Power Flow (OPF) models, based on diverse objective functions, reflecting DSO necessities, have been applied and tried. The obtained results demonstrate that a centralized management approach by the DSO, could assure the respect of operation limits of the system in the actual asset, delaying or avoiding upgrading engagements and charges

Analysing trade-offs and synergies between SDGs for urban development, food security and poverty alleviation in rapidly changing peri-urban areas: a tool to support inclusive urban planning

Transitional peri-urban contexts are frontiers for sustainable development where land-use change involves negotiation and contestation between diverse interest groups. Multiple, complex trade-offs between outcomes emerge which have both negative and positive impacts on progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These trade-offs are often overlooked in policy and planning processes which depend on top-down expert perspectives and rely on course grain aggregate data which does not reflect complex peri-urban dynamics or the rapid pace of change. Tools are required to address this gap, integrate data from diverse perspectives and inform more inclusive planning processes. In this paper, we draw on a reinterpretation of empirical data concerned with land-use change and multiple dimensions of food security from the city of Wuhan in China to illustrate some of the complex trade-offs between SDG goals that tend to be overlooked with current planning approaches. We then describe the development of an interactive web-based tool that implements deep learning methods for fine-grained land-use classification of high-resolution remote sensing imagery and integrates this with a flexible method for rapid trade-off analysis of land-use change scenarios. The development and potential use of the tool are illustrated using data from the Wuhan case study example. This tool has the potential to support participatory planning processes by providing a platform for multiple stakeholders to explore the implications of planning decisions and land-use policies. Used alongside other planning, engagement and ecosystem service mapping tools it can help to reveal invisible trade-offs and foreground the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. This is vital for building approaches which recognise how trade-offs between the achievement of SDGs can be influenced by development interventions

The implications of COVID-19 for health workforce planning and policy: the case of Peru

Like many countries Peru is confronting uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. This is having impacts not only on health systems but also on the planning and preparation of its workforces. In this case article we summarise the progress Peru has been making to improve its workforce capacity and planning and review how Peru has coped with the stresses put on its health system arising from the pandemic. By recounting the responses that the Ministry of Health made through mobilising existing capabilities, additional workers and collaboration with health science faculties and health professional colleges, the article identifies that a longer-term planning perspective based on skills that services require is something that Peru may consider to compliment the health workforce investments that are already being made. As such, this case provides an example for workforce planners and policy makers to contemplate when considering health workforce planning in post-COVID uncertainty

Safety-Assured Speculative Planning with Adaptive Prediction

Recently significant progress has been made in vehicle prediction and planning algorithms for autonomous driving. However, it remains quite challenging for an autonomous vehicle to plan its trajectory in complex scenarios when it is difficult to accurately predict its surrounding vehicles' behaviors and trajectories. In this work, to maximize performance while ensuring safety, we propose a novel speculative planning framework based on a prediction-planning interface that quantifies both the behavior-level and trajectory-level uncertainties of surrounding vehicles. Our framework leverages recent prediction algorithms that can provide one or more possible behaviors and trajectories of the surrounding vehicles with probability estimation. It adapts those predictions based on the latest system states and traffic environment, and conducts planning to maximize the expected reward of the ego vehicle by considering the probabilistic predictions of all scenarios and ensure system safety by ruling out actions that may be unsafe in worst case. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in improving system performance and ensuring system safety over other baseline methods, via extensive simulations in SUMO on a challenging multi-lane highway lane-changing case study

An efficient genetic algorithm for large-scale planning of robust industrial wireless networks

An industrial indoor environment is harsh for wireless communications compared to an office environment, because the prevalent metal easily causes shadowing effects and affects the availability of an industrial wireless local area network (IWLAN). On the one hand, it is costly, time-consuming, and ineffective to perform trial-and-error manual deployment of wireless nodes. On the other hand, the existing wireless planning tools only focus on office environments such that it is hard to plan IWLANs due to the larger problem size and the deployed IWLANs are vulnerable to prevalent shadowing effects in harsh industrial indoor environments. To fill this gap, this paper proposes an overdimensioning model and a genetic algorithm based over-dimensioning (GAOD) algorithm for deploying large-scale robust IWLANs. As a progress beyond the state-of-the-art wireless planning, two full coverage layers are created. The second coverage layer serves as redundancy in case of shadowing. Meanwhile, the deployment cost is reduced by minimizing the number of access points (APs); the hard constraint of minimal inter-AP spatial paration avoids multiple APs covering the same area to be simultaneously shadowed by the same obstacle. The computation time and occupied memory are dedicatedly considered in the design of GAOD for large-scale optimization. A greedy heuristic based over-dimensioning (GHOD) algorithm and a random OD algorithm are taken as benchmarks. In two vehicle manufacturers with a small and large indoor environment, GAOD outperformed GHOD with up to 20% less APs, while GHOD outputted up to 25% less APs than a random OD algorithm. Furthermore, the effectiveness of this model and GAOD was experimentally validated with a real deployment system

From Planning to Projects: Active Living Workshops

Health by Design and the Indiana State Department of Health have conducted Active Living Workshops in 24 communities across Indiana. These workshops raise awareness of how strategic planning, policies, and programs can support active living. Communities who participate develop an action plan based on priorities identified during the workshop. This presentation gives an overview of workshops presented to date and features a case study of three communities that have made significant progress on their action plan

Theoretical results of research on spatial and territorial development (with examples on the european north of Russia)

This article focuses primarily on the correlation between the concepts of “spatial” and “territorial” development. It is shown that, while differing in their content, these concepts substantially complement each other when it comes to specific research studies. In this case, the topic of spatial development includes considering the general areas for the location of productive forces, geographic dimension of the specific types of economic activities, economic measurement of distances, linear communications and a network structure of the economy while. In the topic of territorial development, the author introduces the territory itself as a natural and economic capital and territorial economic management based on such capital. The study of spatial and territorial aspects of socio-economic development in the European North of Russia (ENR) showed that its immediate future is associated not so much with the large projects aimed at creating new fuel and energy, mineral and raw material, or forestry bases, as with the improvement in the existing economic systems based on scientific and technological progress and interregional integration. The progression from developed territories to new Arctic and Northern locations is associated with tremendous costs and requires time for scientific and technical preparation. The modernization of existing production facilities, territorial and production complexes is a priority in the development of productive forces in ENR. The author proposes to apply the theoretical provisions and practical recommendations formulated as a result of studying the spatial and territorial development in the elaboration of government strategic planning documents. Currently, the practice of strategic planning does not fully consider the substance of such concepts as “spatial development” and “territorial development.” This incompleteness is so significant that overcoming it should be considered as one of the key objectives pursued by the regional policy

Enhancing the water point mapping: a WASH approach

Strategic planning and appropriate development and management of water and sanitation services can be strongly supported by accurate and accessible data. If adequately exploited, these data might assist water managers with performance monitoring, benchmarking comparisons, policy progress evaluation, resources allocation, and decision making. A variety of tools and techniques are in place to collect such information. However, some methodological weaknesses arise when developing an instrument for routine data collection, particularly at local level: (i) comparability problems due to heterogeneity of data and sector-re lated indicators, (ii) in adequate combination of different information sources, and (iii) statistical validity of collected data. The purpose of this study is to adopt an integrated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) approach for data collection at community level in rural low income settings, as an attempt to overcome previous shortcomings. The survey design takes the Water Point Mapping (WPM) as a starting point to record all available water sources at a particular location, and this information is then linked to data provided from a household-based survey. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the method, a case study is presented at Tiraque Valley (Cochabamba, Bolivia).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Beyond planning tools: Experiential learning in climate adaptation planning and practices

In the past decade, several dedicated tools have been developed to help natural resources professionals integrate climate science into their planning and implementation; however, it is unclear how often these tools lead to on-the-ground climate adaptation. Here, we describe a training approach that we developed to help managers effectively plan to execute intentional, climate-informed actions. This training approach was developed through the Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF) and uses active and focused work time and peer-to-peer interaction to overcome observed barriers to using adaptation planning tools. We evaluate the effectiveness of this approach by examining participant evaluations and outlining the progress of natural resources projects that have participated in our trainings. We outline a case study that describes how this training approach can lead to place and context-based climate-informed action. Finally, we describe best practices based on our experience for engaging natural resources professionals and helping them increase their comfort with climate-informed planning