Integrated urban evolutionary modeling

Cellular automata models have proved rather popular as frameworks for simulating the physical growth of cities. Yet their brief history has been marked by a lack of application to real policy contexts, notwithstanding their obvious relevance to topical problems such as urban sprawl. Traditional urban models which emphasize transportation and demography continue to prevail despite their limitations in simulating realistic urban dynamics. To make progress, it is necessary to link CA models to these more traditional forms, focusing on the explicit simulation of the socio-economic attributes of land use activities as well as spatial interaction. There are several ways of tackling this but all are based on integration using various forms of strong and loose coupling which enable generically different models to be connected. Such integration covers many different features of urban simulation from data and software integration to internet operation, from interposing demand with the supply of urban land to enabling growth, location, and distributive mechanisms within such models to be reconciled. Here we will focus on developin

CAST – City analysis simulation tool: an integrated model of land use, population, transport and economics

The paper reports on research into city modelling based on principles of Science of Complexity. It focuses on integration of major processes in cities, such as economics, land use, transport and population movement. This is achieved using an extended Cellular Automata model, which allows cells to form networks, and operate on individual financial budgets. There are 22 cell types with individual processes in them. The formation of networks is based on supply and demand mechanisms for products, skills, accommodation, and services. Demand for transport is obtained as an emergent property of the system resulting from the network connectivity and relevant economic mechanisms. Population movement is a consequence of mechanisms in the housing and skill markets. Income and expenditure of cells are self-regulated through market mechanisms and changing patterns of land use are a consequence of collective interaction of all mechanisms in the model, which are integrated through emergence

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Spatial Dynamic Modeling and Urban Land Use Transformation:

Assessing the economic impacts of urban land use transformation has become complex and acrimonious. Although community planners are beginning to comprehend the economic trade-offs inherent in transforming the urban fringe, they find it increasingly difficult to analyze and assess the trade-offs expediently and in ways that can influence local decisionmaking. New and sophisticated spatial modeling techniques are now being applied to urban systems that can quickly assess the probable spatial outcomes of given communal policies. Applying an economic impact assessment to the probable spatial patterns can provide to planners the tools needed to quickly assess scenarios for policy formation that will ultimately help inform decision makers. This paper focuses on the theoretical underpinnings and practical application of an economic impact analysis submodel developed within the Land use Evolution and Impact Assessment Modeling (LEAM) environment. The conceptual framework of LEAM is described, followed by an application of the model to the assessment of the cost of urban sprawl in Kane County, Illinois. The results show the effectiveness of spatially explicit modeling from a theoretical and a practical point of view. The agent-based approach of spatial dynamic modeling with a high spatial resolution allows for discerning the macro-level implications of micro-level behaviors. These phenomena are highlighted in the economic submodel in the discussion of the implications of land use change decisions on individual and communal costs; low-density development patterns favoring individual behaviors at the expense of the broader community.

Key challenges in agent-based modelling for geo-spatial simulation

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is fast becoming the dominant paradigm in social simulation due primarily to a worldview that suggests that complex systems emerge from the bottom-up, are highly decentralised, and are composed of a multitude of heterogeneous objects called agents. These agents act with some purpose and their interaction, usually through time and space, generates emergent order, often at higher levels than those at which such agents operate. ABM however raises as many challenges as it seeks to resolve. It is the purpose of this paper to catalogue these challenges and to illustrate them using three somewhat different agent-based models applied to city systems. The seven challenges we pose involve: the purpose for which the model is built, the extent to which the model is rooted in independent theory, the extent to which the model can be replicated, the ways the model might be verified, calibrated and validated, the way model dynamics are represented in terms of agent interactions, the extent to which the model is operational, and the way the model can be communicated and shared with others. Once catalogued, we then illustrate these challenges with a pedestrian model for emergency evacuation in central London, a hypothetical model of residential segregation tuned to London data which elaborates the standard Schelling (1971) model, and an agent-based residential location built according to spatial interactions principles, calibrated to trip data for Greater London. The ambiguities posed by this new style of modelling are drawn out as conclusions

Visualization in spatial modeling

This chapter deals with issues arising from a central theme in contemporary computer modeling - visualization. We first tie visualization to varieties of modeling along the continuum from iconic to symbolic and then focus on the notion that our models are so intrinsically complex that there are many different types of visualization that might be developed in their understanding and implementation. This focuses the debate on the very way of 'doing science' in that patterns and processes of any complexity can be better understood through visualizing the data, the simulations, and the outcomes that such models generate. As we have grown more sensitive to the problem of complexity in all systems, we are more aware that the twin goals of parsimony and verifiability which have dominated scientific theory since the 'Enlightenment' are up for grabs: good theories and models must 'look right' despite what our statistics and causal logics tell us. Visualization is the cutting edge of this new way of thinking about science but its styles vary enormously with context. Here we define three varieties: visualization of complicated systems to make things simple or at least explicable, which is the role of pedagogy; visualization to explore unanticipated outcomes and to refine processes that interact in unanticipated ways; and visualization to enable end users with no prior understanding of the science but a deep understanding of the problem to engage in using models for prediction, prescription, and control. We illustrate these themes with a model of an agricultural market which is the basis of modern urban economics - the von Thünen model of land rent and density; a model of urban development based on interacting spatial and temporal processes of land development - the DUEM model; and a pedestrian model of human movement at the fine scale where control of such movements to meet standards of public safety is intrinsically part of the model about which the controllers know intimately. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006

Eras of electric vehicles: electric mobility on the Verge. Focus Attention Scale

Daily or casual passenger vehicles in cities have negative burden on our finite world. Transport sector has been one of the main contributors to air pollution and energy depletion. Providing alternative means of transport is a promising strategy perceived by motor manufacturers and researchers. The paper presents the battery electric vehicles-BEVs bibliography that starts with the early eras of invention up till 2015 outlook. It gives a broad overview of BEV market and its technology in a chronological classification while sheds light on the stakeholders’ focus attentions in each stage, the so called, Focus-Attention-Scale-FAS. The attention given in each era is projected and parsed in a scale graph, which varies between micro, meso, and macro-scale. BEV-system is on the verge of experiencing massive growth; however, the system entails a variety of substantial challenges. Observations show the main issues of BEVsystem that require more attention followed by the authors’ recommendations towards an emerging market

Civil tiltrotor missions and applications. Phase 2: The commercial passenger market

The commercial passenger market for the civil tiltrotor was examined in phase 2. A market responsive commercial tiltrotor was found to be technically feasible, and a significant worldwide market potential was found to exist for such an aircraft, especially for relieving congestion in urban area-to-urban area service and for providing cost effective hub airport feeder service. Potential technical obstacles of community noise, vertiport area navigation, surveillance, and control, and the pilot/aircraft interface were determined to be surmountable. Nontechnical obstacles relating to national commitment and leadership and development of ground and air infrastructure were determined to be more difficult to resolve; an innovative public/private partnership is suggested to allow coordinated development of an initial commercial tiltrotor network to relieve congestion in the crowded US Northeast corridor by the year 2000