Austrian Cities Research Articles

Conflictual cultural politics: unpacking local tensions in three Austrian cities

ABSTRACT In this exploratory paper, we discuss local cultural political tensions in Austria’s three largest cities (Vienna, Graz, and Linz). Against the backdrop of COVID-19, which hampered, yet also created new opportunities to host cultural events in public space, we analyze large-scale cultural events (Vienna and Graz), and a newly emerging cultural policy theme (Linz). Drawing on 30 qualitative interviews with cultural politicians, administrators, cultural producers, and artists (2020–2022), situational mapping, and the analysis of media coverage, we unpack (1) agential conflicts that manifest in unequal access to funding and decision-making; (2) symbolic conflicts that variously instrumentalize culture; (3) procedural conflicts that problematize lack of transparency and collaboration; and (4) spatial conflicts that materialize in diverging views about safety, cleanliness, and ownership of public space between state and self-organized cultural actors. Ultimately, we argue for a conflict-oriented approach to cultural policy to grasp the interrelations between power, agency, and space in cultural politics.

Heat vs. Health: Home Office under a Changing Climate

Stressors are especially widespread in urban agglomerations. Common themes of built environment interventions that support health and well-being are blue and green infrastructure, indoor and outdoor air quality, thermal comfort, access to natural lighting, and acoustics. Given the current megatrends of increasing summer temperatures and the high popularity of home offices, we aimed at modeling thermal comfort changes of people working at home in three Austrian cities (Vienna, Innsbruck, and Graz) during the next decades until 2090. We present findings based on (I) an inter-disciplinary literature search and (II) indoor and outdoor climate simulations for actual and future climate scenarios. Based on the results, we discuss the potential impacts for work and human health and well-being, and we suggest a framework for the home office in “post-COVID-19 Austria” that integrates social, ecological, and economic aspects. The results of our study indicate that, in future climate scenarios, overheating of the interior can no longer be prevented without active cooling measures and nature-based solutions. Recommendations on the adjustment of behavior under climate change, including greening, adequate ventilation, and cooling techniques, are thus urgently needed for employees who are working from home in order to maintain physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Analytical assessment of street-level tree canopy in Austrian cities: Identification of re-naturalisation potentials of the urban fabric

Climate change-related impacts such as heat stress, extreme weather events, and their consequences are particularly felt within densely built-up urban areas. Urban re-naturalisation is recognised as a promising cost-effective strategy for improving urban resilience to these environmental and societal issues. In this respect, the present contribution focuses on a comprehensive city-wide assessment of street-level urban tree canopy to detect the existing vegetation gaps and identify re-naturalisation potentials within the urban fabric for the three largest cities in Austria (Vienna, Graz, and Linz). The study relies on QGIS and R software environments to carry out spatial data analytics on georeferenced tree cadastre data and the global map of Local Climate Zones (LCZ) to compute spatial density maps and urban structure parameters. The results suggest a rather random distribution of tree clusters and highly fragmented instances within the city. This fragmentation is predominantly observed within central densely built urban fabric for all three cities, with the absence of street trees in peripheral urbanised areas being more prominent in Graz and Linz. The computed percentage of potentially disconnected areas in terms of the tree canopy for Vienna, Graz, and Linz amounts to 45%, 54%, and 37%, respectively. The analysis of urban structure revealed a homogeneous densely built-up character over central districts and a dominantly heterogeneous character across non-central and peripheral districts with a more openly built fabric (this heterogeneity is, generally more prominent in the case of Graz and Linz). In general, there are numerous opportunities for urban re-naturalisation, focusing on urban trees within such openly arranged buildings. Due to the evident physical constraints of the urban space within central districts, the consideration of building-level greening (e.g. green roofs, green facades) may be a better approach to urban re-naturalisation in these cases. Given the further constraints imposed by the abundance of historic buildings, such measures may not be feasible in every event. Hence, this calls for consideration of novel, innovative and emerging greening systems with the proposition of movable vertical green screens and vertical gardens.

Danielis Sartorii Musicalia Wratislaviensia by Tomasz Jeż

Reviewed by: Danielis Sartorii Musicalia Wratislaviensia by Tomasz Jeż Tomasz Górny Danielis Sartorii Musicalia Wratislaviensia. By Tomasz Jeż. (Fontes Musicæ in Polonia, vol. A/1.) Warsaw: Sub Lupa, 2017. [625 p. ISBN 9788365886118 (hardcover), PLN 45; also available as e-book.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. The life of Thomas Rehdiger (1540– 1576) was marked by traveling, meetings with intellectuals, and a passion for collecting. Despite his relatively early death before the age of thirty-six, Rehdiger managed to assemble an impressive collection of three hundred manuscripts of classical authors, six thousand books from diverse fields of learning, and a treasure trove of coins and mineral samples. He willed his collections to his younger brothers, Adam and Jacob, whom he also mandated to make those collections available to the general public. As a result, after decades of trying to overcome various stumbling blocks, the first public library in Wrocław (Breslau) came into being, named Bibliotheca Rhedigeriana (or Bibliotheca Rehdigeriana) to commemorate its originator and benefactor. The library was located in the so-called Auditorium Theologicum at Saint Elizabeth’s Church and was officially opened on 4 October 1661 (although Rehdiger’s collections had already been deposited there in 1589). Wrocław municipal authorities vowed never to divide them—any subsequent donations adjoining the library would lose their original names and be considered part of the Rhedigeriana. This was exactly what happened to a collection called Sartoriana, which included five manuscripts and 399 music prints, mostly Italian, from between 1606 and 1655. Traditionally, it has been associated with Daniel Sartorius (1612–1671), even though a significant part in creating that collection also could have been played by Ambrosius Profe (1589–1661), who was active in Wrocław and the nearby town of Jawor. Sartorius himself was a student of Saint Elisabeth School (Elisabetanum) in Wrocław between 1628 and 1630 and then went on to teach there from 1646 until 1667 (possibly longer, until 1670). Although there are no indications of any formal music-related posts he might have been appointed to, many documents (e.g., the epicedia written after his passing) point to his profound interest in music and the liberal arts. Sartoriana includes music manuscripts and many addenda to printed works written in Sartorius’s hand, which strongly suggest that the collection was used for musical practice, perhaps during private celebrations among Wrocław’s intellectual elite, such as the events hosted by the rector of Elisabetanum, Elias Maior (1587–1669), attended not only by Sartorius but also by Profe (Maior’s brother-in-law through his sister Maria) and numerous Silesian musicians. Sartoriana has a clear erudite flavor, and the collection forms a surprisingly coherent and well-rounded whole. Ninety percent of the prints originated from the Venice publishing houses of Alessandro and Giacomo Vincenti and Bartolomeo and Francesco Magni, [End Page 214] while the remaining works were printed in other Italian cities (Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples) or German and Austrian cities (Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, Freiberg, Ingolstadt, Leipzig, Ravensburg, and Innsbruck). The predominance of pieces in the seconda pratica is striking, which makes plausible an assumption that an interest in the new Italian style informed the selection of titles to add to the collection. An overwhelming majority of Sartoriana are works by a single composer, with only 5 percent being anthologies, which could speak to the musical maturity of the collectors. The collection includes numerous prints with pieces by Alessandro Grandi (20), Maurizio Cazzati (16), Orazio Tarditi (15), Ignazio Donati (14), Galeazzo Sabbatini (12), Giovanni Antonio Rigatti (11), and Giovanni Rovetta (11), but also by Claudio Monteverdi (9), Tarquinio Merula (7), Giovanni Legrenzi (7), and many others. Catholic religious music is amply represented in the collection through multiple and diverse arrangements of the Liturgy of the Hours, Masses, and church concertos. Numerous examples of madrigals and dramatic as well as purely instrumental music (e.g., canzonas, sonatas, fantasias, and dances) can also be found there. Sartoriana is thus an erudite compilation representative of the musical culture of Italy and could well have served teaching purposes, although the reason behind assembling it cannot be established with any certainty. Last but not least, a lion’s share of...

Future climate projection of heat indices for Austrian major cities: Strengthening urban resilience and meeting user needs

Future climate projection of heat indices for Austrian major cities: Strengthening urban resilience and meeting user needs

How do cities use their communication channels A study of social media adoption in two European federal states

Although they often remain active on other traditional and digital channels, such as newsletters, public sector organisations are increasingly active on social media to communicate with the public. While the usage of these social media platforms has gained attention from many scholars and practitioners, the articulation of diverse channels in cities' communication has remained under-commented. In this article, we investigate this issue through an analysis of the channels preferred by Swiss and Austrian cities to communicate with the population. The following questions are of particular interest: What are the main communication channels used by cities? And are cities that communicate through multiple channels more likely to adopt social media? Results show that cities are less active on social media than on traditional and other digital channels; however, cities present on a social media platform are more likely to extend their presence on these new channels.

Современный храм в структуре города как символ культурной идентичности и общественное пространство

In this work, based on the analysis and classification of arranging modern Austrian churches within the urban structure, an analogy with Russian churches was drawn, the development of the modern architecture of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 21st century was forecasted, the location of contemporary sacral architecture in the current urban area of Irkutsk was considered, and a trend to reestablish traditional techniques was revealed. Over 100 modern churches of Austrian cities, including Vienna, Salzburg, Graz and their suburbs, were examined and photofiled; the scientific publications of Austrian architects and art historians in this field were studied. The reforms in the Catholic Church in the 20th century that influenced the siting, style and form of religious architecture were addressed, and the dynamic transformation of sacred architecture was analysed. Contemporary and reconstructed historical sacral buildings of Irkutsk were examined and analysed. The tendencies in their development were summarised in the light of newly erected buildings and conceptual student and professional architectural designs of churches. Due to the political turmoil of 1917 in Russia, the development of the Russian Orthodox Church has been halted for 70 years. Thus, at the end of the 20th century, the sacral architecture revived in the same state it was destroyed. However, as a symbol of culture and architectural identity, public space, touristic and urban attraction, it has been slowly renovated over the past 30 years; new architectural solutions and locations in the urban space are being modernised. The studies show that any architectural style, even the conservative religious architecture, responds to the social phenomena and its emerging needs, resulting in a gradual change of its status in the urban development, as well as spatial organisation, composition, form and architectural style, through its implementers, namely architects and customers.

РУССКОЯЗЫЧНАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА В ВЕНГРИИ И АВСТРИИ: СТРУКТУРА И ФУНКЦИОНИРОВАНИЕ

The article analyzes the features of the functioning of the Russian-speaking economy in two countries of the European Union — Hungary and Austria. The study is based on data from national statistical offices, Eurostat data, an analysis of online job sites, as well as on the basis of surveys conducted during 2020-2021 with representatives of Russian-speaking communities living in these countries. It is shown that in both countries at present the main channels for the formation of Russian-speaking communities are labor migration, marriage migration, family reunification and educational migration. The Russian-speaking economy in Austria includes a chain of Russian grocery stores, small hotels, hairdressers. In the period before the pandemic, Russian-speaking guides were in demand. Doctors and lawyers with knowledge of the Russian language are also focused on the Russian-speaking population of Austria. The Russian-speaking economy is mainly represented in Vienna and a number of large Austrian cities — tourism centers. In Hungary, the Russian-speaking economy also relies primarily on consumers of Russian goods and services. The Russian-speaking segment of the Hungarian economy is developing due to the demand for the country among Russian tourists, tourists from other countries of the post-Soviet space, where the proportion of the population that speaks Russian is large. Russian-speaking employees are also involved in international companies that have their offices in Hungary.

Reprint of: City tourism pre- and post-covid-19 pandemic - Messages to take home for climate change adaptation and mitigation?

The paper presents the status quo on climate change impacts on city tourism in Austria describing the impacts by air travel and a short stay on the greenhouse gas emissions and the changing conditions in the city. For Austrian cities, depending on location and topography, heavy rainfall events, storms and heat waves in particular could become increasingly relevant in the tourism context. For medium-sized and large cities, heat is the most frequently discussed topic in connection with possible adaptation potentials. The analysis of challenges shows a strong overlap of adaptation targets in city tourism with adaptation challenges for city planning including connection to the sub-urban surrounding areas to confront climate change impacts. Covid-19 pandemic, additionally, offered the opportunity to discuss a new re-start of the city-tourism against the experience during the shutdown period in spring 2020. The paper argues that we can learn from the current health crisis for coping with climate change related extreme events and to increase achievements in climate change mitigation. Firstly, the pandemic provides a strong ability to discuss the impact of city tourism due to short-term air travel and options to enhance more climate-friendly options on the other hand. Secondly, Covid-19 emphasized the need to reconsider the role of free spaces in metropolitan areas as well as their accessibility. Herewith synergies with climate change adaptation are likely when questioning the availability and accessibility of green and blue infrastructure as well as their capacities. Challenges including crowding and impacts by over tourism on public free spaces will require joint strategies involving all public and private institutions (including local communities and businesses) responsible for the maintenance of green and blue free spaces. Thirdly, the strong interactions between urban and suburban areas became evident once more, which will also be very relevant for city tourism in the future (e.g. in times of heat waves). Reflection on the transferability of coping with such crowding effects, related to the adaptive behaviour of residents and tourists in times of severe heat waves, might be relevant for both city tourism and summer tourism destinations near metropolitan areas. Finally, the Covid-19 crisis encourages discussions on over-tourism in metropolitan destinations in favour of a more balanced approach, in particular in inner city areas and around major sightseeing attractions.

Applying urban climate model in prediction mode\u2014evaluation of MUKLIMO_3 model performance for Austrian cities based on the summer period of 2019

Extreme heat events are natural hazards affecting many regions of the world. This study uses an example of the six largest cities in Austria to demonstrate the potential of urban climate model simulations applied in prediction mode providing detailed information on thermal conditions. For this purpose, the urban climate model MUKLIMO_3 of the German Meteorological Service (DWD) coupled with the hydrostatic numerical weather prediction model, ALARO, is used to simulate the development of the urban heat island (UHI) in Austrian cities for the summer period of 2019 with a horizontal resolution of 100 m. In addition to the evaluation of UHI predicting skills, other relevant variables, such as humidity and wind characteristics on hourly basis, are also analysed in this paper. Model evaluation confirmed that the MUKLIMO_3 microscale model had the capacity to simulate the main thermal spatiotemporal patterns in urban areas; however, a strong dependence on the input data from the mesoscale model was found. Our results showed large benefit in prediction of maximum air temperatures in urban areas, while the relative humidity predictions of MUKLIMO_3 appear to be much less plausible and show large variety of model prediction skills. Urban climate model simulations using real atmospheric conditions can facilitate better quantification and understanding of day-to-day intra-urban variations in microclimate as well as provide a basis for evaluation of the microclimate prediction skills of mesoscale numerical models with urban extensions.

City tourism pre- and post-covid-19 pandemic – Messages to take home for climate change adaptation and mitigation?

The paper presents the status quo on climate change impacts on city tourism in Austria describing the impacts by air travel and a short stay on the greenhouse gas emissions and the changing conditions in the city. For Austrian cities, depending on location and topography, heavy rainfall events, storms and heat waves in particular could become increasingly relevant in the tourism context. For medium-sized and large cities, heat is the most frequently discussed topic in connection with possible adaptation potentials. The analysis of challenges shows a strong overlap of adaptation targets in city tourism with adaptation challenges for city planning including connection to the sub-urban surrounding areas to confront climate change impacts. Covid-19 pandemic, additionally, offered the opportunity to discuss a new re-start of the city-tourism against the experience during the shutdown period in spring 2020. The paper argues that we can learn from the current health crisis for coping with climate change related extreme events and to increase achievements in climate change mitigation. Firstly, the pandemic provides a strong ability to discuss the impact of city tourism due to short-term air travel and options to enhance more climate-friendly options on the other hand. Secondly, Covid-19 emphasized the need to reconsider the role of free spaces in metropolitan areas as well as their accessibility. Herewith synergies with climate change adaptation are likely when questioning the availability and accessibility of green and blue infrastructure as well as their capacities. Challenges including crowding and impacts by over tourism on public free spaces will require joint strategies involving all public and private institutions (including local communities and businesses) responsible for the maintenance of green and blue free spaces. Thirdly, the strong interactions between urban and suburban areas became evident once more, which will also be very relevant for city tourism in the future (e.g. in times of heat waves). Reflection on the transferability of coping with such crowding effects, related to the adaptive behaviour of residents and tourists in times of severe heat waves, might be relevant for both city tourism and summer tourism destinations near metropolitan areas. Finally, the Covid-19 crisis encourages discussions on over-tourism in metropolitan destinations in favour of a more balanced approach, in particular in inner city areas and around major sightseeing attractions.

Urban transformation and heat island: Potential of urban design alternatives to mitigate the effects of urban overheating in Austrian cities

Ongoing urbanization worldwide present a big challenge for the quality of urban life. This development poses great challengesfor cities due to the growing demand for more living space and supporting infrastructure, resulting in environmental pollution, higher anthropogenic waste heat and poor outdoor thermal comfort. To accommodate this rapid expansion of urban areas, the city authorities need to adopt a more climate-sensitive approach to urban transformation. In this regard, the present contribution investigates the potential of specific planning and adaptation strategies to attenuate the urban overheating for distinct urban locations in Vienna and Linz, Austria, over a hotsummer period. For this purpose, we applied the parametric modelling environment Rhinoceros 3D and a number of built-in algorithms in the Rhino’s plug-in Grasshopper for dynamic simulation of urban microclimate. The results were compared based on the meanradiant temperature (MRT) averaged over a 24-hour cycle and differentiated into day-and night-time shares. The results reveal a notable potential of selected greening measures to positively influence outdoor thermal conditions. The effectiveness of thesemeasures, however, seem to be time-dependent, whereby a more pronounced cooling effect was noted during the daytime, attributed to the solar shielding effect.

Gender-Mainstreaming-Planung braucht kritische feministische Ansätze

This contribution looks at strategies for gender mainstreaming (GM) in planning practice applying gender/diversity design criteria. It offers a critical discussion of the ‘city of proximity’ (CoP) as a guiding principle for genderaware planning. Examples of guidelines and handbooks from different planning cultures show that the CoP is a widely adopted model, not only in gender mainstreaming, however it is seldom associated with its feminist origin. As planning professionals and researchers, we consider the role of urban and regional planning to change power relations and gendered norms. Taking two Austrian cities as examples, we illustrate the impact of GM on planning practice, revealing both the strength of the legislative framework and the limitations of Leitbilder that unintentionally reproduce gender stereotypes. The paper concludes with suggestions to move beyond the stage of pilot projects and handbooks, particularly in two fields: first, by looking at the attitudes and competences of professionals, and second, by dissociating the city of proximity from neighbourhoods while implementing gender criteria at a larger scale, e.g. in regional development plans.

High Quality Open Spaces in Urban Development — Selected Examples from Graz, Austria

Growing urbanization poses an enormous challenge to city planners. Noticeable effects of the increased population density in cities include housing shortages, rising real estate prices, increased traffic, air pollution, shortages of green spaces and attractive public spaces, the rising cost of urban infrastructure and the risk of social tensions. Especially in dense urban areas, public open spaces (squares and streets, urban parks and spacious recreational areas) have become increasing important. Their design, functionality and the adaption to the needs of the residents significantly influences the quality and atmosphere of urban coexistence. The consideration of quality criteria is essential for the creation of sustainable, livable and smart open spaces. Modern approaches to sustainable planning in urban areas and the versatile aspects of state-of-the-art open space design are the core themes of this article. General aspects of landscape planning in Austria and selected best practice projects in the context of urban development are presented.This article gives an overview of open space planning in Austria. To be successful, projects must consider the specific needs of city districts, which requires tailor-made approaches and an interdisciplinary planning team. To be accepted and adequately used by the public, projects must be based on a detailed analyses of the spatial, natural and social conditions.The complex and diverse challenges of open space planning in Austrian cities can be seen as representative for other cities, as certain urban trends occur (in slightly altered dimensions) all over Europe or on an even bigger scale. Selected best practice urban planning projects, which have been realized by freiland Environmental Consulting CE Ltd, based on state-of-the-art principles, demonstrate modern planning approaches to tackling these challenges.

Hort-term Rentals, Housing Markets and COVID-19: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Evidence from Four Austrian Cities

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, evidence on the conversion of regular rental housing into permanent holiday homes has fuelled concerns that Airbnb and other short-term rentals contribute to the shortage of affordable homes and to the displacement of regular residents in cities with high housing demand. When the pandemic set in, the media was quick to speculate that holiday homes would be returned to the regular rental market. This paper provides some theoretical reflections on the factors that are driving and impeding such a development and presents preliminary results from an ongoing research project that empirically traces the impacts of COVID-19 on the rental housing market based on an analysis of real estate listings in four large Austrian cities. We argue that a current shift to the regular rental market is likely, but that the medium- and long-term development is uncertain. Empirically, we demonstrate that such a shift has occurred in all four cities considered. We do not find evidence, however, that the increased rental housing supply has dampened rent levels.

Smart comprehension – Comparing three smart cities from three Middle-European countries

The topic of smart city is very actual and popular today. This is an urban development and management mode, what using the infocommunication technologies and smart devices and solutions, to made the city more effective, more environmental-friendly and more liveable for the citizens. However, there are big differences in smart city point of view between counties, regions and cities. In this study the chosen cities was compared across their smart city situation. These three are the following: Bratislava (Slovakia), Graz (Austria) and GyA‘r (Hungary). The author analyze the strategic document, look at the working smart solutions from the cities, and find results about the three analyzed cities. The conclusion is that Graz is smarter than the other two cities, but Bratislava and GyA‘r have good opportunities to catch up the European average. Graz could be a good pattern for this cities, both of them can learn from Austrian cities, if they want to reach their goal, and become the smartest city from their own country.

Assessing Energy Profiles of Urban Neighborhoods: A Streamlined GIS-Based Approach

The present contribution illustrates recent developments within the research project E_Profil. This project targets the development of a toolbox for the exploration of neighborhood profiles in terms of socio-cultural, urban development and energy-related aspects. Thereby, the major goal is to facilitate an energy and resource efficient and environmentally responsible mid-and long-term development of Austrian cities. The specific contribution described in this paper illustrates a simple methodology for the efficient use of GIS-data toward the derivation of urban development strategies in view of energy usage. In a first step, the geometry data of one (or multiple) specific urban neighborhoods is semantically enriched by additional information (building period, energy status of the buildings, etc.). Such data can be usually found in different archives of the corresponding city or can be collected in-situ. Subsequently, this enriched database must be further processed to form input data bundles, which can be used to derive key performance indicators of individual buildings, selected subsets of the total building stock of the neighborhood or the overall building stock. Based on these procedures, impact analysis of different mid-and long-term transformation policies regarding the energy performance of the neighborhood (s) can be performed in a convenient fashion. This contribution illustrates the approach and delivers a proof of concept based on two urban districts of the city of Linz, Austria.

Exploring the predictive ability of LIKES of posts on the Facebook pages of four major city DMOs in Austria

Using data for the period 2010M06–2017M02, this study investigates the possibility of predicting total tourist arrivals to four Austrian cities (Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna) from LIKES of posts on the Facebook pages of the destination management organizations of these cities. Google Trends data are also incorporated in investigating whether forecast models with LIKES and/or with Google Trends deliver more accurate forecasts. To capture the dynamics in the data, the autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model class is employed. Taking into account the daily frequency of the original LIKES data, the mixed data sampling (MIDAS) model class is employed as well. While time-series benchmarks from the naive, error–trend–seasonal, and autoregressive moving average model classes perform best for Graz and Innsbruck across forecast horizons and forecast accuracy measures, ADL models incorporating only LIKES or both LIKES and Google Trends generally outperform their competitors for Salzburg. For Vienna, the MIDAS model including both LIKES and Google Trends produces the smallest forecast accuracy measure values for most forecast horizons.

Housing benefits and minimum income schemes in Austria – an application of the residual income approach to housing affordability of welfare recipients

Recently, housing costs have increased considerably in and around the main Austrian cities. For low-income households and vulnerable groups on the housing market, the nine Austrian regions have set up housing benefit schemes as income-dependent monetary transfers to cover housing costs, and, for destitute households, minimum income schemes as a subsidiary safety net of last resort. As the schemes are designed and interact very differently across the regions, it is unclear whether low-income households are protected sufficiently by them to meet housing costs. This contribution applies a comprehensive residual income approach to housing affordability in order to identify market segments and household types where affordability is at risk. This is done by calculating overall benefit levels across four different household types and four different income levels in the nine Austrian regions, and comparing these with typical regional housing costs. Desk research is complemented with 26 qualitative interviews with policy practitioners to scrutinise and discuss the results. We find that especially in and around the capital city, Vienna, and some other main Austrian cities, overall benefits do not cover common housing costs, resulting in insufficient funds for necessary non-housing expenses. Policy recommendations are discussed in an international context.

Transferring urban traveling speed model fits across cities

Link traveling time models form the basis for route planning methods used in navigation devices as well as for logistic applications. These models are provided based on extensive real world data sets which are available to a differing degree in different cities as well as for different links within a given city. For smaller cities, where typically fewer data is available or less frequently measured links, it might be beneficial to transfer models from close-by cities or links from the same city with sufficient data basis. In this paper, the potential for transferring link traveling time model fits, that is, the estimated models, between cities and within a city is investigated. Methods that combine information typically contained in street maps with empirically derived features that are easily transferred are developed and tested with substantial real world data sets. This provides the basis for developing route planning methods in cities with insufficient real world data coverage to base accurate route traveling time predictions on. Link traveling time models are derived on the basis of an extensive floating taxi data set in Vienna, Austria. The models incorporate typical map information such as speed limits and functional road classification (frc). Estimation is performed using penalized least squares methods to control for overfitting. The expected accuracy for the model transfer is investigated both in terms of intracity transfer (from modelled links to other links in the same city) and in terms of intercity transfer (from one city to another city). Data sets of different extent are used from the two Austrian cities of Vienna and Linz as well as for the French city of Lyon. The models presented in this paper are demonstrated to lead to superior performance compared to the benchmark model of Leodolter et al. (2015). It is shown that transfer between cities in the same country (here using the Vienna model for Linz) may be beneficial in terms of prediction accuracy while the transfer between countries (here from Vienna to Lyon) decreases accuracy but not dramatically. These results demonstrate that the transfer of link traveling time models within a city or from one city to another city can provide acceptable prediction accuracy and thus can be used as the basis for navigation algorithms in case no good data basis is accessible for a city.