Development of a Decision Support Framework for the Planning of Sustainable Transportation Systems

With the rapid increase in economic development throughout the world, there is stress on the resources used to support global economy, including petroleum, coal, silver, and water. Currently, the world is consuming energy at an unprecedented rate never seen before. The finite nature of such non-renewable natural resources as petroleum and coal puts pressure on the environmental system, and ultimately reduces the availability of resources for future generations. Hence, it is critical to develop planning and operational strategies that seek to achieve a sustainable use of existing natural resources. With this motivation, this dissertation focuses to develop a decision support framework based on multiple performance measures for the planning of sustainable transportation systems. A holistic approach was adopted to compute performance indices for a System of Systems (SOS) including the Transportation, Activity, and Environmental systems. The performance indices were synthesized to calculate a composite sustainability index to evaluate the sustainability of the overall SOS. To help make better design and policy decisions at an aggregate level, a suitable modeling approach that captures the dynamic interactions within the SOS was formulated. A method of system of ordinary differential equations was chosen to model the aggregated performance indices and their interdependencies over time. In addition, systems and control methodology was used in the development of optimal policies (with respect to investments in various systems) for decision making purposes. The results indicated that the Transportation and Activity system both follow positive trend over the years whereas the Environmental system follows an overall negative trend. This is evident as continuous increase in growth and transportation will result in decreased performance of Environmental system over time. The results also highlighted periodic behavior with a phase lag for the performance of Transportation and the Activity system; the performance of Environment system decayed with time. In addition, the results demonstrated that it is possible to formulate an optimal control to predict investment decisions over time. Furthermore, the results from this research provided an alternate, cost-effective method to rank and prioritize projects based on sustainability index values. The major contributions of this research are fourfold. The first contribution of this research is the development of a framework to generate sustainability indices for policy making considering, explicitly, multiple interdependent systems. This research is first of its kind to study the dynamical interactions between the three systems: Transportation, Activity, and Environment. The second contribution of this research is a detailed analysis to understand the dynamics of the three interdependent systems. Multiple insights were obtained from this research. The techniques learnt can be applied to perform multi-city network modeling through the concept of interconnected networks. In addition, the need to conserve the environment and preserve the resources is highlighted. The third contribution of this research work is development of control mechanisms to evaluate investment policies for the design of sustainable systems. Investment decisions were derived from the design. The fourth contribution of this research is the development of a framework to estimate sustainability indices for the evaluation and prioritization of transportation projects. Projects are prioritized and ranked based on the sustainability index values. The greater the sustainability index value, the higher is the project priority. This provides a comprehensive mechanism to incorporate information beyond traditional techniques

Bridging the Gap

The concept of resilience has arisen as a “new way of thinking”, becoming a response to both the causes and effects of ongoing global challenges. As it strongly stresses cities’ transformative potential, resilience’s final purpose is to prevent and manage unforeseen events and improve communities’ environmental and social quality. Although the resilience theory has been investigated in depth, several methodological challenges remain, mainly related to the concept’s practical sphere. As a matter of fact, resilience is commonly criticised for being too ambiguous and empty of meaning. At the same time, turning resilience into practice is not easy to do. This will arguably be one of the most impactful global issues for future research on resilience. The Special Issue “Bridging the Gap: The Measure of Urban Resilience” falls under this heading, and it seeks to synthesise state-of-the-art knowledge of theories and practices on measuring resilience. The Special Issue collected 11 papers that address the following questions: “What are the theoretical perspectives of measuring urban resilience? What are the existing methods for measuring urban resilience? What are the main features that a technique for measuring urban resilience needs to have? What is the role of measuring urban resilience in operationalising cities’ ability to adapt, recover and benefit from shocks?

Forecasting: theory and practice

Forecasting has always been at the forefront of decision making and planning. The uncertainty that surrounds the future is both exciting and challenging, with individuals and organisations seeking to minimise risks and maximise utilities. The large number of forecasting applications calls for a diverse set of forecasting methods to tackle real-life challenges. This article provides a non-systematic review of the theory and the practice of forecasting. We provide an overview of a wide range of theoretical, state-of-the-art models, methods, principles, and approaches to prepare, produce, organise, and evaluate forecasts. We then demonstrate how such theoretical concepts are applied in a variety of real-life contexts. We do not claim that this review is an exhaustive list of methods and applications. However, we wish that our encyclopedic presentation will offer a point of reference for the rich work that has been undertaken over the last decades, with some key insights for the future of forecasting theory and practice. Given its encyclopedic nature, the intended mode of reading is non-linear. We offer cross-references to allow the readers to navigate through the various topics. We complement the theoretical concepts and applications covered by large lists of free or open-source software implementations and publicly-available databases

Mathematical Modelling of Cell Migration and Polarization

Cell migration plays a fundamental role in both development and disease. It is a complex process during which cells interact with one another and with their local environment. Mathematical modelling offers tools to investigate such processes and can give insights into the underlying biological details, and can also guide new experiments.The first two papers of this thesis are concerned with modelling durotaxis, which is the phenomena where cells migrate preferentially up a stiffness gradient. Two distinct mechanisms which potentially drive durotaxis are investigated. One is based on the hypothesis that adhesion sites of migrating cells become reinforced and have a longer lifespan on stiffer substrates. The second mechanism is based on cells being able to generate traction forces, the magnitude of which depend on the stiffness of the substrate. We find that both mechanisms can indeed give rise to biased migration up a stiffness gradient. Our results encourages new experiments which could determine the importance of the two mechanisms in durotaxis.The third paper is devoted to a population-level model of cancer cells in the brain of mice. The model incorporates diffusion tensor imaging data, which is used to guide the migration of the cells. Model simulations are compared to experimental data, and highlights the model’s difficulty in producing irregular growth patterns observed in the experiments. As a consequence, the findings encourage further model development.The fourth paper is concerned with modelling cell polarization, in the absence of environmental cues, referred to as spontaneous symmetry breaking. Polarization is an important part of cell migration, but also plays a role during division and differentiation. The model takes the form of a reaction diffusion system in 3D and describes the spatio-temporal evolution of three forms of Cdc42 in the cell. The model is able to produce biologically relevant patterns, and numerical simulations show how model parameters influence key features such as pattern formation and time to polarization

Forecasting: theory and practice

Forecasting has always been at the forefront of decision making and planning. The uncertainty that surrounds the future is both exciting and challenging, with individuals and organisations seeking to minimise risks and maximise utilities. The large number of forecasting applications calls for a diverse set of forecasting methods to tackle real-life challenges. This article provides a non-systematic review of the theory and the practice of forecasting. We provide an overview of a wide range of theoretical, state-of-the-art models, methods, principles, and approaches to prepare, produce, organise, and evaluate forecasts. We then demonstrate how such theoretical concepts are applied in a variety of real-life contexts. We do not claim that this review is an exhaustive list of methods and applications. However, we wish that our encyclopedic presentation will offer a point of reference for the rich work that has been undertaken over the last decades, with some key insights for the future of forecasting theory and practice. Given its encyclopedic nature, the intended mode of reading is non-linear. We offer cross-references to allow the readers to navigate through the various topics. We complement the theoretical concepts and applications covered by large lists of free or open-source software implementations and publicly-available databases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Forecasting: theory and practice

Forecasting has always been in the forefront of decision making and planning. The uncertainty that surrounds the future is both exciting and challenging, with individuals and organisations seeking to minimise risks and maximise utilities. The lack of a free-lunch theorem implies the need for a diverse set of forecasting methods to tackle an array of applications. This unique article provides a non-systematic review of the theory and the practice of forecasting. We offer a wide range of theoretical, state-of-the-art models, methods, principles, and approaches to prepare, produce, organise, and evaluate forecasts. We then demonstrate how such theoretical concepts are applied in a variety of real-life contexts, including operations, economics, finance, energy, environment, and social good. We do not claim that this review is an exhaustive list of methods and applications. The list was compiled based on the expertise and interests of the authors. However, we wish that our encyclopedic presentation will offer a point of reference for the rich work that has been undertaken over the last decades, with some key insights for the future of the forecasting theory and practice

The Rise and Fall of Infrastructures: Dynamics of Evolution and Technological Change in Transport

This book tries to merge two streams of analysis: diffusion research, a relatively recent interdisciplinary field, and the long established disciplines of transportation planning and the economic history of transport systems. After World War II, diffusion research emerged simultaneously from a number of disciplines, including sociology, geography, and the economics of technological change. For over a hundred years economic historians have provided many detailed, but often fragmented studies of the development and socio-economic impacts of individual transport systems. At a conference held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in 1989 on Diffusion of Technologies and Social Behavior it became clear that while many valuable theories and models have been developed, a unifying theoretical framework has not yet emerged in diffusion research. This is related to the fact that research has almost exclusively concentrated on a micro-level analysis of technological or social/cultural change. This book makes a contribution toward bridging the different fields of diffusion research. First, by providing an overview of the different theoretical streams within the discipline, and secondly by studying diffusion phenomena for technological change at the sectoral level up to the macro-level diffusion of pervasive transport systems. The economic history of transportation has provided many prominent examples of the fruitfulness of blending macro theory with a strong empirical basis at the sectoral level. It was not the objective of this work to develop a new comprehensive theory of infrastructure development. Instead, the study aimed at combining the methodological apparatus developed within diffusion research with the empirical research tradition of the economic history of transportation. Its objective was to provide a synthetic description, covering all successive transport modes both individually in their historical evolution, and in their integration into a holistic view of the whole transport sector. The analysis is international and spans about 200 years, i.e., the developments in a number of countries are studied to highlight similarities and differences in development patterns. With such objectives, this work is both a risky and a necessarily limited effort, but it has been undertaken in the hope of providing some new perspectives for people working in, or interested in both fields