Testing a gravity-based accessibility instrument to engage stakeholders into integrated LUT planning

The paper starts from the concern that while there is a large body of literature focusing on the theoretical definitions and measurements of accessibility, the extent to which such measures are used in planning practice is less clear. Previous reviews of accessibility instruments have in fact identified a gap between the clear theoretical assumptions and the infrequent applications of accessibility instruments in spatial and transport planning. In this paper we present the results of a structured-workshop involving private and public stakeholders to test usability of gravity-based accessibility measures (GraBaM) to assess integrated land-use and transport policies. The research is part of the COST Action TU1002 “Accessibility Instruments for Planning Practice” during which different accessibility instruments where tested for different case studies. Here we report on the empirical case study of Rome

The learning process of accessibility instrument developers: Testing the tools in planning practice

Many planning support tools have recently been developed aimed at measuring and mod- elling accessibility (Accessibility Instrument or AI). The main difficulty for tool developers is designing an AI that is at the same time technically rigorous and usable in practice. Measuring accessibility is indeed a complex task, and AI outputs are difficult to communi- cate to target end-users, in particular, because these users are professionals from several disciplines with different languages and areas of expertise, such as urban geographers, spa- tial planners, transport planners, and budgeting professionals. In addition to this, AI devel- opers seem to have little awareness of the needs of AI end-users, which in turn tend to have limited ability for using these tools. Against this complex background, our research focuses on the viewpoint of AI developers, with two aims: (1) to provide insights into how AI devel- opers perceive their tools and (2) to understand how their perceptions might change after testing their AI with end-users. With this in mind, an analysis of 15 case studies was per- formed: groups of end-users tested different AI in structured workshops. Before and after the workshops, two questionnaires explored the AI developers’ perceptions on the tools and their usability. The paper demonstrates that the workshops with end-users were crit- ical for developers to appreciate the importance of specific characteristics the tool should have, namely practical relevance, flexibility, and ease of use. The study provides evidence that AI developers were prone to change their perceptions about AI after interacting directly with end-users

Urban Form and Sustainability: the Case Study of Rome

This paper investigates the relation between sustainability and urban form. To this aim a system of Land-Use and Transport Interactions (LUTI) models has been designed and applied to the metropolitan area of Rome, to understand the interdependence of key variables such as travel behavior, transport supply, property values, jobs and residential location. The models represent the behavior of both dwellers and transport users and how they react to changing conditions. A system of assessment indicators has been defined to systematically test and compare alternative scenarios of urban form and to evaluate to what extent different locations and density distributions of activities achieve sustainability in terms of transport performances, social and environmental impacts

Infrastrutture di trasporto su ferro come elementi di riqualificazione delle periferie: due casi a confronto

Urban rail infrastructures play a key role in ensuring accessibility and connectivity between suburban areas and the city center. However, if not embedded in integrated planning strategies, rail infrastructures might be origins of segregation and urban decay. Many cities are currently building new metro or tram lines in order to get the city center and urban peripheries closer. Only in few cases however, these transport schemes are jointly planned and designed with land uses of urban corridors or station areas they go through. The aim of this paper is to examine integrated planning processes of suburban areas and rail infrastructures. We conduct the study through the analysis of two rail corridors characterized by different strategies, implementation and governance: the Line 1 of the city of Naples (Italy) and the Zaancorridor in the metropolitan area of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). In Naples, the construction of new stations occurs in conjunction with the renewal of urban areas characterized by high levels of decay, both in the city center and in suburban areas. In Amsterdam, the Zaancorridor transformation is part of a long term planning strategy defined by the Plan Maak Plaats!: to strengthen the role of the rail system as the backbone of regional spatial development. The paper thus offers an analysis of these two examples, investigating the role of transport infrastructures in the transformation of two different contexts

An accessibility planning tool for network transit oriented development : SNAP

In the academic debate regarding the influences between urban form, built environment and travel patterns, a specific idea that has taken hold is that more compact urban development around railway stations, often referred to as Transit Oriented Development (TOD), contributes to the control of vehicle travel and to more sustainable metropolitan systems. According to this general principle this work proposes a GIS accessibility tool for the design of polycentric transit oriented scenario: SNAP - Station Network Accessibility Planning tool. In the first part the state of the art on Transit Oriented Development policies in Europe is presented with a focus on three study cases. In the second part the SNAP tool is described, with remarks to the approach, the methodology and the used indicators. Furthermore the paper discusses an application to the metropolitan area of Naples

URBAN FORM AND SUSTAINABILITY: MODELLING EVIDENCES FROM THE EMPIRICAL CASE STUDY OF ROME

This paper investigates the relation between sustainability and urban spatial forms (i.e. compact, sprawl, TOD). To this aim a scenario analysis tool, based on a system of Land-Use and Transport Interactions (LUTI) models has been designed and applied to the urban area of Rome, to understand the interdependence of key variables such as travel behaviour, transport supply, property values, jobs and residents choice location. A system of assessment indicators has furthermore been defined to systematically test and compare alternative scenarios of urban forms and to evaluate to what extent different locations and density distribution of activities achieve economic, environmental and social goals. Preliminary results show that at the city level different urban development forms have found to differ in their sustainability, and in particular the compact development appears to better performs in comparison to others forms of spatial development

Testing a gravity-based accessibility instrument to engage stakeholders into integrated LUT planning

In this paper we present the results of a structured-workshop involving private and public stakeholders to test usability of gravity-based accessibility measures (GraBaM) to assess integrated land-use and transport policies. The research is part of the COST Action TU1002 “Accessibility Instruments for Planning Practice” during which different accessibility instruments where tested for different case studies. Here we report on the empirical case study of Rome In the first part of the paper, the accessibility measure adopted and the tool in which these are implemented (i.e. GraBaM) are presented. The used accessibility measure is defined in literature as “gravity-based”, since it can be derived from “gravity-type” trip distribution model (Hansen, 1959). In particular two types of accessibility have been considered, referred to as “active” and “passive” accessibility (Cascetta, 2009). The active accessibility of a given zone i is a proxy of the ease of reaching the activities/opportunities located in different zones j of the study area for a given purpose (e.g. workplace, shopping) moving from i. On the other hand, the passive accessibility is a proxy of the opportunity of an activity located in a given zone i to be reached from the potential “consumers” coming from all the other zones j of the study area for a given purpose. Such definitions do consider the accessibility of a given zone as a sum of the generalized travel costs between zones itself and the other zones of the study area, weighted by an attraction term representing either the opportunities to be reached in the other zones (in the case of the active accessibility) or the potential “consumers” of the opportunity located in the given zone (in the case of the passive accessibility). The tool integrates the calculus of these accessibility measures with the production of accessibility maps, allowing easily changing parameters and visualizing the outputs, with the use of GIS, which provides easily spatial data entry, management, retrieval, analysis and visualization. In particular the accessibility maps represent for each traffic zone in which the study area is divided, the accessibility measure, also allowing overlapping it with other geographical data. The GraBAM (Papa and Coppola, 2012) tool can be integrated in comprehensive Land Use Transport Interaction (LUTI) modelling architecture, simulating the impacts of changing accessibility on the spatial distribution of residential and economic activity as well as on dwelling prices (Coppola and Nuzzolo, 2011). In doing so it can also assist urban planners in identifying optimal locations for new development areas and can support the analysis of the real estate market dynamics due to changing land-use and transport variables. In the second part of the research the accessibility tool have been tested within a structured workshop involving public and private stakeholders, according to a four-step protocol (te Brömmelstroet et al, 2014 ) defined within the COST Action. The main goal was to evaluate usability and applicability of the tool in the current practice of the practitioners involved in the experiment, and, at the same, time to generate an experiential learning-cycle process within the group of people (researchers and practitioners) involved. The experiment was set in Rome, and involved a panel of experts in the fields of Land Use and Transport planning. Different backgrounds guaranteed different perspectives on the usability of the instrument, both transport and urban planners from the private sector (consulting), public sector (municipal planning offices) and academia were involved. The heterogeneity of the group was a key factor for the success of the workshop. Nevertheless, this required a more complex preliminary activity to organize ‘customized’ pre-workshops with selected groups of participants. The paper describes the experience and give answers to the following questions enriching the final outputs of the COST Action: what the tool’s developers learned and how the tool has been improved after the test; what practitioners learned from the experience, also in relations to their background and to which extent the test had a direct impact on the local context and on the ongoing planning processes