Spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality nexus in Iskandar Malaysia

Spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality are three development entities which affect one another thus forming a nexus. Deep understanding on the nexus between the entities provides possibility to create positive impacts on the societal living environment if the integration is well addressed. The developing region of Iskandar Malaysia shows potential to prove the nexus with the current trends of urbanisation process. The tremendous transformation in spatial distribution seemingly unintegrated with the transportation system has potential to draw impacts on the air quality. Research on the nexus of spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality was carried out in Iskandar Malaysia by analysing and evaluating the interconnectivity of the aspects. The spatial pattern study was conducted by analysing the current land use pattern and supported by the household travel survey of 400 household held in eight prominent residential zones. To confirm the traffic-induced air pollution, traffic volume survey was conducted at preselected points connecting origin and destination of the respondents. Air quality was analysed by correlating the traffic volume and air quality by using the existing model. The analysis revealed that the spatial policy of Iskandar Malaysia has driven growth towards a polycentric system with a de-concentration travel pattern for working purposes. The phenomenon exhibits a more distributed rather than concentrated and lumped traffic pattern. The travel behaviour of the citizen signified by high dependency on private automobile. This study confirms that there is nexus of spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality in Iskandar Malaysia. The nexus of the integration provide ideas to foresee the potential resolving ideas from the changes in the spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality setting in the region

Spatial Pattern, Transportation and Air Quality Nexus: The Case of Iskandar Malaysia

Spatial pattern, transportation, and air quality are three development entities which significantly affecting one another. This nexus exhibits the urbanization imprint accouter transportation generating air pollution as a reflection of spatial distribution. The integration among them is a vital part of development as it affects the societal living environment. It provides unfavorable air quality and directly cause health problems. The developing region of Iskandar Malaysia exhibits huge spatial distribution transformation accompanied by large percentage of urbanization rate, but seems less integration of land use and transportation planning which causes the exaggeration of air pollution. We carry out the research on the nexus of spatial distribution, transportation and air quality in Iskandar Malaysia by analyzing and evaluating the interconnectivity of these three entities. The spatial analysis and evaluation on the land use development pattern and spatial policy shows that the Iskandar development region are growing in the polycentric manners, where the spatial development policy drives the distributional growth of new sub-centers. We undertook a household-based travel survey that reveals the poly-centricity reflected by the de-concentration of workplaces which shifted from the single point towards multiple centers. On the other hand, this phenomenon has created a distributional traffic pattern amid the high dependency on the private vehicles of the citizens in Iskandar Malaysia. With a predominantly fossil fuel consuming vehicles, this has generated air pollution. Based on the traffic survey and the dependency of the citizens on private cars for their daily mobility, the concentration of air pollution is seemingly at risk. This research reflects that Iskandar Malaysia development region currently undergoes towards polycentric development with some new urban centers. We found that land use and transportation planning policies require serious attention as the current trend of spatial pattern development tends to reinforce high dependency on the motorized travel