The Costs of Urban Sprawl on Portuguese Municipalities in 2011

Urban sprawl is a type of urban growth which is generally considered as mainly negative that entails a series of negative impacts. One specific negative impact is the higher municipal direct monetary costs associated with it, when compared with other types of urban growth, e.g. compact city (1). Municipal monetary costs are related with the construction, management, operation and maintenance of infrastructures, such as roads, sewerage, water supply, communications and energy; and services such as garbage collection, recycling, postal service and transportation (including school transport). Usually, these costs are, directly and indirectly, supported by the municipal government (2). The association between sprawl and higher municipal costs is related with the over extension of infra-structures and services to serve a fragmented low density urban space. Nevertheless there is a paradox at work here, since sprawled urban development could act as a source of revenues to a municipality (e.g. urbanization and construction licenses and tax revenues), but in the long term the costs to maintain such paradigm will be higher than the revenues obtained (2). The objective of this work is to assess and associate the aforementioned costs to higher levels of and to different manifestations of sprawl. For that we collected data on a sample of 60 municipalities, which are classified as medium cities in Portugal. For this assessment, a dataset composed by each municipality?s census subsections of 2011, containing demographic information, and developed on ARCGIS ®, will be developed. Sprawl indicators will be built focusing on the following dimensions: population density, building densities and type of urban space, to account for fragmentation and dispersions patterns; and the irregularity of urban forms; Correlation analysis and regression models will be built between the sprawl indicators and the monetary costs of the municipalities, to assess if sprawl is correlated or not with higher costs, while controlling for other aspect like municipality size, region administrative and political structure. These costs are to be extracted from municipal annual budgets, and it will include the budget lines related with the development and maintenance of municipalities infrastructures and services, namely: roads; sewerages; water supply; garbage and recycle recollection; transportation; green spaces; and cultural and sports facilities. The obtained results are discussed both in terms of its accordance with previous findings in the literature as well as its policy implications. 1 Carruthers, J.I. & Ulfarsson, G.F., 2003. Urban Sprawl and the Cost of Public Services. Environment and Planning B-Planning & Design, 30, pp.503?522. 2 Carter, N. & Silva, F.N. da, 2001. Recent Changes in Territorial Planning and the System for Controling Urban Development in Portugal. Transportation Research Part a-Policy and Practice, 3, pp.341?370

An investigation into the influence of land-use, social networks and information and communication technologies on destination choice for social activities

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enable individuals to travel more flexibly. The choice of location for social activities has become very flexible. In addition to this, land-use characteristics also play a vital role in the location of social activities. This work aims to analyse the influence of land-use characteristics, ICT use, and social networks in the destination choices for face-to-face social activities of university students during both weekdays and weekends. Students from the two different campuses of the Instituto Superior Técnico were presented with an online questionnaire, which was intended to collect information about their use of ICT and social networks, in addition to their travel characteristics and socio-demographics. Emphasis was made upon capturing the characteristics of social networks and ICT usage. Information on land-use characteristics was obtained from secondary sources. Factor analysis was initially carried out to extract factors related to the use of ICT and social networks; these were later used to model the destination choice for social activities. The alternatives considered for destination choice included: home or the vicinity thereof, university or the vicinity thereof, other locations (further away from home and university), and evenly spread locations – having no specific priority for any of the other three locations considered. The analysis was performed separately for travel during weekdays and weekends so that an understanding of the differences and similarities in behaviour during these different time periods could be garnered. A multinomial logit model was estimated to model this choice. The results point to the relevance of land-use characteristics, the location of close friends, and modes of interaction. Individuals residing in more accessible central, and denser areas, were more likely to have activities distributed evenly across the city. These results stress the relevance of accessibility in allowing larger and more diverse spaces to be used for social activities

The Portuguese High Speed Rail Network; Relating Financing to Strategic and Operating Issues

This paper describes the implementation of the Portuguese High Speed Rail (HSR) Network. The business model developed by RAVE for the PPP’s related with the HSR infrastructure is described and discussed. Following a recently awarded research project (EXPRESS) aimed at studying the strategic aspects related with the implementation of HSR is presented and its aspects more directly related with HSR operation which could be relevant in a PPP context are discussed

Accessibility Indicators for Regional Economic Development: An Application to the Regional Distributive Effects of High-Speed Rail in Spain

The inauguration of a HSR line increases the accessibility to people, resources, goods, and markets, which brings locational advantages, thus attracting new households, economic activities, allowing greater agglomerations. Intuitively, the locations where the accessibility increases higher than average may gain more economic opportunities and more growth. Accessibility indicators measure the relative location importance, affecting the attractiveness and economic development potentials of regions. They are also able to measure the disparities among regions to define how transport and development impacts are distributed across geographical areas or population. In order to evaluate the impacts of accessibility on the regional economic growth, choosing the most suitable accessibility indicator is rather crucial. To analyze how well different types of accessibility indicators are able to capture the spatial distributions of the regional economic variables, this paper is set to study the ex-post impacts of accessibility due to the HSR network expansion in the 2000s at provincial level in Spain and its relation to the evolution of several economic performance indicators (GDP, population, employment and number of firms) during the same time period. Four accessibility indicators corresponding to different conceptualizations are introduced: one location indicator, two economic potential indicators and one daily accessibility indicator. The study area and the zoning level for the analysis is comprised of 47 provinces in continental Spain. The visualization procedure for accessibility indicators and the economic variables is supported by ArcGIS® software. To calculate the accessibility values, travel times between all the municipalities by railway are computed for the year 2000 and 2010 using a GIS-based network with network analysis tool box in ArcGIS®. The relative changes of accessibility and economic variables for all the provinces of Spain are presented and analyzed. The distribution patterns of the accessibility indicators and economic variables are compared. The obtained results are expected to help better understanding the concept of accessibility and its explanatory power in the economic impact analysi

Investigating the role of High Speed Rail in shaping metro-regions

In the literature many definitions of megacities and mega-regions are proposed (Urena et al., 2009; Pagliara et al., 2011). For example, Hall (2009) defines a mega city region as a ?series of cities physically separated but functionally networked clustered around one or more larger central cities and are connected with dense flows of people and information using important transport infrastructures?. Transport infrastructures and services are fundamental either for the emergence or the proper functioning of mega cities and regions. High Speed Rail systems are definitely today considered as important infrastructures. By impacting strongly on accessibility patterns, they have revolutionized users? life style together with their mobility behavior thanks to their power of shrinking spaces and shaping places. This contribution is based on the recognition that commuting flows are not enough to justify the formation of a megacity or a mega-region. Even if they can contribute to it, they don?t justify the development of a megapolis. A theoretical model should be specified in order to explain the mechanisms through which metro areas integrate into mega-regions and to understand what is the real role of HSR systems as a variable of this model. This paper attempts to fill this gap, present in the literature, and identify some European corridors having high potential for mega-region formation as supported by High Speed Rail. Examples can be found in France, in Spain and in Italy as well. To achieve this objective, this paper will rely on a thorough literature review aimed at the identification of the possible causal relations between changes in accessibility induced by HSR and the emergence of megacities and megaregions. Moreover a first attempt of specifying the model is proposed. Indeed regression models are defined, where the dependent variables are described in terms of commuting flows, travel time and travel cost of the competing transport modes between metro areas, variables connected with HSR, i.e. comfort, speed, low environmental impact, etc. will be considered as well. Other factors influencing the formation of megacities and megaregions will be introduced and tested. Among them economic variables like the number of jobs, the GDP, etc. Further perspectives should consider that this construct should be tested and synthesized in mathematical terms and then calibrated with the collection of real data

Excessive daytime sleepiness after traumatic brain injury : association with periodic limb movements and REM behavior disorder : case report

Um homem de 52 anos, procurou o Hospital. Universitário de Brasília com queixa de sono agitado. Sua esposa relatava, desde há cerca de 10 anos, intensa movimentação de membros e agressividade em meio a sonhos violentos. Desde então apresentava sonolência diurna excessiva. Havia relato de traumatismo de crânio há 34 anos e coma de 2 meses de duração. A vídeo-polissonografia revelou comportamento agressivo e agitado durante o sono REM, e movimentos periódicos de pernas. Havia importante sonolência diurna no teste de latências de sono. Foi instituído tratamento com levodopa-benzerazida 100/25 mg à noite. Após 10 semanas de evolução, houve melhora da movimentação noturna global, e desaparecimento dos episódios ligados a sonhos de conteúdo violento. Este caso nos permite analisar a associação entre trauma craniano e alterações nas vias dopaminérgicas (movimentos periódicos das pernas e distúrbio de comportamento do sono REM) e revisar a importância dos distúrbios na produção de hipocretina hipotalâmica na fisiopatologia desse quadro clínico. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTA 52 year-old male patient, had complaint of "restless sleep". His wife informed that for the past ten years the patient had presented intense and aggressive body movements, and sometimes, violent dreams. The patient also complained of excessive daytime sleepiness. His relevant previous medical history included a traumatic brain injury at the age of 28 which left him in coma for two months. A video-polysomnography showed periodic leg movements and, during REM sleep, aggressive and agitated behaviour. The multiple sleep latency test revealed extremely short latencies. Initially, he was treated with levodopa-benzerazide, 100/25 mg, 2 hours before bedtime. After 10 weeks his overnight behaviour pattern improved and leg movements diminished. This case supports the hypothesis of an association between cranial trauma and alterations in the dopaminergic pathways represented by periodic leg movements during sleep and a sleep behaviour disorder and proposes the possibility of hypothalamic hypocretin involvement in its pathophysiology

The relationship between young people's transit use and their perceptions of equity concepts in transit service provision

This study investigates the effect of price and travel mode fairness and spatial equity in transit provision on the perceived transit service quality, willingness to pay, and habitual frequency of use. Based on the theory of planned behavior, we developed a web-based questionnaire for revealed preferences data collection. The survey was administered among young people in Copenhagen and Lisbon to explore the transit perceptions and use under different economic and transit provision conditions. The survey yielded 499 questionnaires, analyzed by means of structural equation models. Results show that higher perceived fairness relates positively to higher perceived quality of transit service and higher perceived ease of paying for transit use. Higher perceived spatial equity in service provision is associated with higher perceived service quality. Higher perceived service quality relates to higher perceived ease of payment, which links to higher frequency of transit use

Transit Use by Young People in Times of Financial Austerity: A Cause of Equity Concern?

This study investigates the effect of price and travel time fairness and spatial equity in transit provision on the perceived transit service quality, willingness to pay, and habitual frequency of use. Based on the theory of planned behavior, we developed a web-based questionnaire for revealed preferences data collection. The survey was administered among young people in Copenhagen and Lisbon to explore the transit perceptions and use under different economic and transit provision conditions. The survey yielded 499 questionnaires, analyzed by means of structural equation models. Results show that higher perceived fairness relates positively to higher perceived quality of transit service and higher perceived ease of paying for transit use. Higher perceived spatial equity in service provision is associated with higher perceived service quality. Higher perceived service quality relates to higher perceived ease of payment, which links to higher frequency of transit use

Responsabilidade civil constitucional

Exposição apresentada na EMERJ, em 25.05.01, no Seminário “Aspectos Multidisciplinares da Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal”