Modelling policies for urban sustainability

The objective of the EU research project PROPOLIS (Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport for Increasing Urban Sustainability) is to assess urban strategies and to demonstrate their long-term effect in European cities. To reach this goal, a comprehensive framework of methodologies including integrated land use, transport and environmental modelling as well as indicator, evaluation and presentation systems have been developed. Sustainable development is viewed as comprising the environmental, socio-cultural and economic dimension. About thirty key indicators have been defined to measure the three dimensions of sustainability, such as air pollution, consumption of natural resources, quality of open space, population exposure to air pollution and noise, equity and opportunities and economic benefits from transport and land use. Indicator values are derived from state-of-the-art urban land use and transport models. A number of additional modules, including a justice evaluation module, an economic evaluation module and a GIS-based raster module, have been developed and integrated to provide further indicator values. Both multicriteria and cost-benefit analysis methods are used to consistently evaluate the impact of the policies. The environmental and social dimensions of sustainability are measured using multicriteria analysis for the evaluation of the indicators, whereas cost-benefit analysis is used for the economic dimension. The modelling and evaluation system is currently being implemented in seven European urban agglomerations: Bilbao (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), Dortmund (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Inverness (Scotland), Naples (Italy) and Vicenza (Italy). A large number of policies will be tested with the modelling and evaluation system in the seven urban regions. Policies to be investigated are land use policies, transport infrastructure policies, transport regulation and pricing policies and combinations of these. Besides a common policy set for all seven urban regions, city-specific local policies will be assessed as well. The first part of the paper will introduce the methodology and the modelling system developed. The second part will present first results of the policy testing and evaluation. The paper will conclude with initial conclusions on successful strategies to enhance the long-term sustainability of urban regions.

Evaluating Urban Sustainability Using Land-Use Transport Interaction Models

The objective of the EU research project PROPOLIS (Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport for Increasing Urban Sustainability) was to assess urban strategies and to demonstrate their long-term effects in European cities. To reach this goal, a comprehensive framework of methodologies including integrated land-use, transport and environmental models as well as indicator, evaluation and presentation systems was developed. Sustainable development is viewed as comprising the environmental, socio-cultural and economic dimension. Thirty-five indicators were defined to measure the three dimensions of sustainability, such as air pollution, consumption of natural resources, quality of open space, population exposure to air pollution and noise, equity and opportunities and economic benefits from transport and land use.  Indicator values are derived from state-of-the-art urban land-use and transport models. A number of additional modules, including a justice evaluation module, an economic evaluation module and a GIS-based raster module, were developed and integrated to provide further indicator values. Both multicriteria and cost-benefit analysis methods are used to consistently evaluate the impacts of the policies. The environmental and social dimensions of sustainability are measured using multicriteria analysis for the evaluation of the indicators, whereas cost-benefit analysis is used for the economic dimension. The modelling and evaluation system was implemented in seven European urban regions: Bilbao (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), Dortmund (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Inverness (Scotland), Naples (Italy) and Vicenza (Italy). A large number of policies were tested with the modelling and evaluation system in the seven urban regions. Policies investigated are land use policies, transport infrastructure policies, transport regulation and pricing policies and combinations of these. Besides a common set of policies examined in all seven urban regions, also city-specific local policies were assessed in each urban region.  The first part of the paper introduces the methodology and the model system developed. A particular focus is on the development of indicators describing urban sustainability derived from different indicator modules in the modelling system. The second part presents selected aggregated results of the policy testing and evaluation for Dortmund as one of the seven urban regions. The paper concludes with recommendations on how successful strategies to enhance the long-term  ustainability of urban regions should look like

The SASI Model

The SASI model is a recursive simulation model of socio-economic development of 201 regions in Europe subject to exogenous assumptions about the economic and demographic development of the European Union as a whole and transport infrastructure investments and transport system improvements of the TETN (see the other SASI reports in the SASI Home Page). This report describes the software of the SASI model i.e. tools for network scenario generation, the input files, database and output files of the model, the model software itself and the programmes developed for analysing and visualising the model results

The SASI Model

This report describes the results of demonstration scenario simulations done with the SASI model (see the other SASI reports in the SASI Home Page), i.e. the application of the model with different assumptions on TEN infrastructure investments and network imnprovements and their likely socio-economic impacts on the European regions. As a case study, the likely impacts of the Oeresund fixed link between Denmark and Sweden were examined. The report shows that the model is able to model the development of the interaction between infrastructure and regional development in the past and to provide plausible forecasts of the likely effects of future infrastructure network scenarios

Räumliche Wirkungen von Verkehrsprojekten

Welche räumlichen Auswirkungen ergeben sich durch den Ausbau von Verkehrsinfrastruktur? Dieser Frage geht die vorliegende Veröffentlichung nach. Die Dissertation basiert auf dem Forschungsprojekt "Regionale Auswirkungen von Verkehrsinfrastrukturen - Ex-Post-Folgenabschätzung realisierter Verkehrsvorhaben zur Generierung empirisch abgesicherten Folgenwissens". Anhand von vier Fallbeispielen (Stadtregionen München, Karlsruhe, Paderborn, Hamburg) werden räumliche Auswirkungen von bereits realisierten Verkehrsinfrastrukturen im stadtregionalen Kontext mittels ex-post Folgenabschätzungen ermittelt, analysiert und dokumentiert. Die Methode basiert auf einer vertieften Analyse des Stands der Forschung und dem theoretischen Konzept des Regelkreises "Siedlungsentwicklung und Verkehr". Zu den räumlichen Wirkungen neuer Verkehrsinfrastrukturen zählen neben den Effekten auf die Erreichbarkeit die Veränderung der Attraktivitäten einzelner Standorte, die durch die Standortentscheidungen der Investoren bewirkte Bautätigkeit mit der Folge sich ändernder Siedlungsstrukturen, die durch die Standortentscheidungen der Nutzer bewirkten Umzüge und somit letztlich die räumliche Verteilung menschlicher Aktivitäten, d.h. die Nutzung der Standorte. Zu jedem der Wirkungsbereiche Erreichbarkeit, Attraktivität, Bautätigkeit, Umzüge und Aktivitäten wurden Wirkungsindikatoren entwickelt, mit denen quantitativ überprüft wurde, ob eine neue Verkehrsinfrastruktur räumliche Effekte in Form von Sonderentwicklungen ausgelöst hat. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass durchaus eine kontinuierliche Wechselwirkung der beiden Bereiche Verkehr und Flächennutzung besteht. Bei überdurchschnittlichen Erreichbarkeitsverbesserungen stellen sich räumliche Folgewirkungen in dem begünstigten Korridor ein. Hierzu zählen z.B. Steigerungen der Bodenwerte, überproportionale Siedlungstätigkeit, einhergehend mit relativ hohen Bevölkerungs- und/oder Arbeitsplatzzuwächsen. Zudem konnten eindeutige Zusammenhänge zwischen Erreichbarkeit, Erreichbarkeitsänderungen und deren Wirkungen auf die anderen Indikatoren sowie die kombinierte Wirkung unterschiedlicher Indikatoren zur Erklärung der räumlichen Entwicklung in den Stadtregionen statistisch nachgewiesen werden

The IASON Common Spatial Database

The goal of the project IASON (Integrated Appraisal of Spatial Economic and Network Effects of Transport Investments and Policies) of the 5th RTD Framework Programme of the European Commission is to improve the understanding of the impacts of transport policies on short- and long-term spatial development in the EU by developing a unified assessment framework for transport project and transport policies at the European level integrating network, regional economic and macroeconomic impacts. One of the tasks of IASON consists of refining two existing models of regional economic development, the SASI Model and the CGEurope Model, and carrying out scenario simulations of European transport investment, regulatory and pricing policies. The report presents the common spatial database used for the two models. The report was written in co-operation with the Institute of Regional Research of the Christian Albrechts University Kiel (IfR

Sustainable Mobility in Cities

The objective of the project 'Sustainable Mobility in Cities' was to advance an approach for identifying policy packages for sustainable mobility. The study combined qualitative and quantitative methodological components: In the qualitative part of the analysis, market segmentation techniques were used to identify groups and locations positively or negatively affected by transport-related policy instruments. In the quantitative part of the study, a method for developing a synthetic population as the basis for a microsimulation of urban travel demand and traffic was developed. The project was a co-operation between the Department of Geography of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Institute of Spatial Planning. The reports presents the results of the study

The SASI Model

The task of the SASI project was to identify the way transport infrastructure contributes to regional socio-economic development in different regional contexts. For this purpose an interactive computer simulation model for forecasting the impacts of transport infrastructure investments and transport system improvements of the trans-European transport networks on socio-economic activities in the regions of Europe was developed (see the other SASI reports in the SASI Home Page). This report describes the implementation of the SASI model, i.e. the application of empirical data to the model and the estimation of its parameters

Aspatial Peripherality in Europe

"Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy" (AsPIRE) was a European research project funded by the EU Fifth Framework Programme concerned with the changing nature of peripheral regions. Recent advances in transport and communication technology have created the potential for fundamental changes in relationships between highly accessible "core" and less accessible "peripheral" regions. Some peripheral regions have taken advantage of these new opportunities, while others perhaps more accessible regions lag behind. The AsPIRE project aimed at explaining these differences in response. 'Aspatial peripherality' is a term devised by the project team to describe a range of processes to compensate for the handicaps associated with remote locations. The report presented here was a contribution of the Institute of Spatial Planning, University of Dortmund to AsPIRE. It developed cartographic patterns of aspatial peripherality and a quantitative analysis of the linkages between different "soft" and "hard" factors of aspatial peripherality and key economic indicators