Moving from the central city: features, destinations, causes and consequences of city dwellers' flight

Cities have recently been affected by important changes both as regards their role in general economic growth and their spatial structure. As for the first issue, market globalisation has heightened territorial competition and cities, as places with a concentration of economic activities and workers and potential cradles of innovation, have found a new leading role in determining the future development of the regions and nations they belong to; as for the second issue, improvements in transportation and communication systems have reduced the necessity for proximity, thus leading to a new urban form which has been given many labels (low-density city, scattered city, dispersed city, exploded city, urban sprawl, etc.), but has clearly lost two traditional urban aspects: the territorial concentration of the population and economic activities and the certainty of city boundaries, intended both in physical and administrative terms. The last item is particularly important in territorial contexts, like in Italy, characterised by a large number of small local governments: in fact the spillover of cities from their traditional boundaries has provoked a twofold negative effect, that is, growing difficulties in understanding and in managing urban problems and opportunities. Keeping the described context as a framework, this paper aims to analyse the population movements that affected the chief regional city of Tuscany over a ten-year period (more precisely 1998-2008), in order to deduce their related causes and effects. The model developed was based on microeconomic data and connected the individual characteristics of the people leaving Florence (i.e. age, level of education, family size and composition) to the economic and territorial features of the places of destination (i.e. distance from Florence, real estate prices, social composition and functional mix). This application, based on an ordinarily little used data set, gave statistical evidence to residential choices and some measures of rental effects and search of amenities on urban sprawl. This insight could be reach of political implications. Given the subject-matter, the paper refers both to the literature on causes and patterns of residential mobility and to the one on causes and consequences of urban sprawl.

A Comparison Between Coupled and Decoupled Vehicle Motion Controllers Based on Prediction Models

In this work, a comparative study is carried out with two different predictive controllers that consider the longitudinal jerk and steering rate change as additional parameters, as additional parameters, so that comfort constraints can be included. Furthermore, the approaches are designed so that the effect of longitudinal and lateral motion control coupling can be analyzed. This way, the first controller is a longitudinal and lateral coupled MPC approach based on a kinematic model of the vehicle, while the second is a decoupled strategy based on a triple integrator model based on MPC for the longitudinal control and a double proportional curvature control for the lateral motion control. The control architecture and motion planning are exhaustively explained. The comparative study is carried out using a test vehicle, whose dynamics and low-level controllers have been simulated using the realistic simulation environment Dynacar. The performed tests demonstrate the effectiveness of both approaches in speeds higher than 30 km/h, and demonstrate that the coupled strategy provides better performance than the decoupled one. The relevance of this work relies in the contribution of vehicle motion controllers considering the comfort and its advantage over decoupled alternatives for future implementation in real vehicles.This work has been conducted within the ENABLE-S3 project that has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking under Grant Agreement No 692455. This work was developed at Tecnalia Research & Innovation facilities supporting this research

Heuristics and Biases in Travel Mode Choice

. This study applies experimental methods to analyze travel mode choice. Two different scenarios are considered. In the first scenario, subjects have to decide whether to commute by car or by metro. Metro costs are fixed, while car costs are uncertain and determined by the joint effect of casual events and traffic congestion. In the second scenario, subjects have to decide whether to travel by car or by bus, both modes in which costs are determined by the combination of chance and congestion. Subjects receive feedback information on the actual travel times of both modes. We find that individuals exhibit a marked preference for cars, are inclined to confirm their first choice and demonstrate travel mode stickiness. We conclude that travel mode choice is subject to heuristics and biases that lead to robust deviations from rational choice.travel mode choice, learning, information, heuristics, cognitive biases.

An Agent based model of a two good economy on a network

This thesis studies the relationship between people in a two good economy on a social network. Each person in the network is allotted a certain number of firewood and a certain number of candy bars. Each person tries to increase his or her happiness through trading. Each person in the network knows at least one other person in the network. The people in the network can trade with the people they know to increase their happiness. The goal of the thesis is to be able to predict how each person\u27s happiness is affected, just by knowing who knows whom within the network. That is, is there a network importance metric that is a good predictor of happiness? The thesis presents many trading simulations with different networks, through a MATLAB code that was created using an agent-based model. The size of the network is varied through the experiments, and the probability that people know each other within the network is also varied. Data is collected from all the trading simulations in order to understand clearly what different factors affect the networks. Most importantly what affects happiness within the networks is studied. Three different standard measures of centrality are studied to determine which is the best indicator of happiness. The three centrality measures include: degree, clustering coefficients, and eigenvalue centrality. Throughout many different trading simulations, each person\u27s centrality measurement is compared to his or her ending happiness, in order to determine which standard measure of centrality is the best predictor of happiness

Moving from the central city: features, destinations, causes and consequences of city dwellers' flight

Cities have recently been affected by important changes both as regards their role in general economic growth and their spatial structure. As for the first issue, market globalisation has heightened territorial competition and cities, as places with a concentration of economic activities and workers and potential cradles of innovation, have found a new leading role in determining the future development of the regions and nations they belong to; as for the second issue, improvements in transportation and communication systems have reduced the necessity for proximity, thus leading to a new urban form which has been given many labels (low-density city, scattered city, dispersed city, exploded city, urban sprawl, etc.), but has clearly lost two traditional urban aspects: the territorial concentration of the population and economic activities and the certainty of city boundaries, intended both in physical and administrative terms. The last item is particularly important in territorial contexts, like in Italy, characterised by a large number of small local governments: in fact the spillover of cities from their traditional boundaries has provoked a twofold negative effect, that is, growing difficulties in understanding and in managing urban problems and opportunities. Keeping the described context as a framework, this paper aims to analyse the population movements that affected the chief regional city of Tuscany over a ten-year period (more precisely 1998-2008), in order to deduce their related causes and effects. The model developed was based on microeconomic data and connected the individual characteristics of the people leaving Florence (i.e. age, level of education, family size and composition) to the economic and territorial features of the places of destination (i.e. distance from Florence, real estate prices, social composition and functional mix). This application, based on an ordinarily little used data set, gave statistical evidence to residential choices and some measures of rental effects and search of amenities on urban sprawl. This insight could be reach of political implications. Given the subject-matter, the paper refers both to the literature on causes and patterns of residential mobility and to the one on causes and consequences of urban sprawl

Architecture of the Past versus Contemporary Design: Postwar Reconstruction as a Reflection on Construction

Reconstruction or re-construction? Post-war reconstruction in the 20th century in Europe was the chance to reflect on therelationship between architecture of the past and contemporary projects, and to bring into the building practice all the theoretical speculations conducted up to that point around the themes past/present, tradition/modernity. The debatewas particularly intense in Germany, where the magnitude of the devastation put technicians and intellectuals in front ofthe problem of the recovery of urban life. At first, the early post-war years were exclusively dedicated to the urgency - among huge financial difficulties - to provide citizens with a roof and minimum standards, as well as to save and rebuild those buildings which, if left in ruins and exposed to the weather, would become inexorably lost. Afterwards the architects, both modernists and traditionalists, were called upon to take a position on the architectural heritage of the past; they had to reflect on techniques, language, traditional forms of the building, considering them according to the altered sensitivity (modern Kunstwollen) of the 20th century. From this point on, different positions developed in Germany around the theme of reconstruction, with two extremes: on the one hand the “retrospective reconstructions” (reproposal of the image of ancient buildings), on the other hand the so-called “interpretative reconstructions” (in this case, the reading and understanding of the ruin becomes the starting point for the new architectural design, also paying attention to the relationship with the urban fabric). Hans Döllgast’s and Joseph Wiedemann’s works in Munich belong to this latter position. In their reconstructions, the ruin is distilled down to its architectural substance and the decoration is reformulated in rigorously simplified shapes. This attitude allows them to bring out the constructive rationality of the building, where tectonic logic becomes architectural language

Validation of trajectory planning strategies for automated driving under cooperative, urban, and interurban scenarios.

149 p.En esta Tesis se estudia, diseña e implementa una arquitectura de control para vehículos automatizados de forma dual, que permite realizar pruebas en simulación y en vehículos reales con los mínimos cambios posibles. La arquitectura descansa sobre seis módulos: adquisición de información de sensores, percepción del entorno, comunicaciones e interacción con otros agentes, decisión de maniobras, control y actuación, además de la generación de mapas en el módulo de decisión, que utiliza puntos simples para la descripción de las estructuras de la ruta (rotondas, intersecciones, tramos rectos y cambios de carril)Tecnali

Fast Real-Time Trajectory Planning Method with 3rd-Order Curve Optimization for Automated Vehicles

Automated driving (AD) is one of the fastest-growing tendencies in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) field with some interesting demonstrations and prototypes. Currently, the main research topics are aligned with vehicle communications, environment recognition, control, and decision-making. A real-time trajectory planning method for Automated vehicles (AVs) is presented in this paper; the contribution is part of AD’s decision-making module. This novel approach uses the properties of the 3er order Bézier curves to generate fast and reliable vehicle trajectories. Online execution and vehicle tracking capacities are considered on the approach. A feasible trajectory is selected based on the criteria: (i) the vehicle must be contained by a collision-free corridor given by an upper decision layer, (ii) the vehicle must be capable to track the generated trajectory, and (iii) the continuity of the path and curvature must be preserved in the joints. Our approach was tested considering a vehicle length (automated bus) of 12 meters. The scenario has the dimension of a real test location with multiple roundabouts.This work was supported by the European AutoDrive project from the ECSEL program under the grant agreement No 737469, and the European SHOW Project from the Horizon 2020 program under the grant agreement No 875530

A Linear Model Predictive Planning Approach for Overtaking Manoeuvres Under Possible Collision Circumstances

Overtaking is one of the most difficult tasks during driving. This manoeuvre demands good skills to accomplish it correctly. In the overtaking considering multiple vehicles (more than a couple) is necessary to understand, predict and coordinate future actions of the other participants. These reasons make it a significant scenario for testing in the connected and automated driving field, with the main goal of predicting safe future states. In this sense, this work presents an overtaking method based on a linear Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach, which considers multiple participants involved in the scenario. This method adapts dynamically the trajectory for the manoeuvre in case of unexpected situations. Some of these changes consider other vehicles coming on the opposite lane or variations on participants' driving decisions. Additionally, the system considers passengers' comfort, the vehicle physical constraints and lateral actions of the vehicle decoupled of the longitudinal ones to simplify the problem.European Commision H2020, (643921), UnCoVerCP