Case Study Of Berlin Research Articles

From user to operator: Rationalizing the charging infrastructure deployment. A case study of Berlin

The urge to develop greener transportation necessitates a shift from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). Ensuring user acceptance of EVs through adequate charging infrastructure is crucial for this transition. We hypothesize that a user-oriented, time and space-coherent deployment of charging stations can reduce range anxiety and enhance EV adoption. We present a new multi-criteria deployment model and apply it through a MATSim multi-agent simulation to the Berlin region, observing the effects of different user behaviors on the charging infrastructure deployment. Results indicate that slow chargers are more cost-efficient and that residential charging is vital for user acceptance of EVs. The study concludes that a well-planned deployment schedule significantly reduces range anxiety and supports a coherent charging infrastructure helping EV democratization.

Gray legality: Varying degrees of housing illegality in Berlin’s rental cap

This study aims to understand how housing legality is negotiated and contextually constructed by investigating the highly regulated German context of Berlin. It investigates the varying tenants’ experiences affected by the enforcement and abolition of the city’s rental cap law (Berliner Mietendeckel-Geset), implemented between February 2020 and April 2021. The article frames the case study of Berlin in the context of legality and develops a typology of legal and illegal practices within this case. Through collecting data from 19 tenants using semi-structured interviews to identify recurring narratives and experiences, the article explores how legality is negotiated and socially constructed. The results suggest that a spectrum of gray legality emerges from these negotiations, breaking the binary view of legality in the Global North. This spectrum covers legality, semi-legality, semi-illegality, and illegality. Gray legality refers to incidents where it becomes hard to judge the complete adherence or lack of compliance with a law. Hence, this article contributes to understanding illegality as a state–society relationship defined not only by laws and regulations but also by publicly accepted practices and the often-untraceable stakeholder negotiations.

Ten steps towards integrated decision making for ecological restoration in cities: Rewilding the European beaver (Castor fiber) in Berlin, Germany

Ensuring a livable city for all within the more-than-human discourse, restoration of urban ecosystems requires careful consideration of both human and non-human needs. However, traditional assessments and therefore most management plans usually fail to include the latter as a core planning requirement. This article presents and explains a 10-step method which simultaneously and actively considers both to identify potential restoration areas within urban ecosystems. To do so, a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis for the multispecies needs identification is combined with a Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System (MCSDSS) for the spatial assessment. To validate this method, a case study of Berlin, Germany, an explicitly urban case, is presented. The aim of the study was to evaluate the ecosystem restoration (rewilding) potential of the city's riparian and riverine ecosystems through the enhancement of Eurasian beaver habitats.•Method combining SWOT analysis with MCSDSS for an integrated spatial assessment•Well-suited for multispecies (human and non-human) perspective on urban nature restoration

Construction of a walkability quality dataset in GIS: the case study of Berlin

Construction of a walkability quality dataset in GIS: the case study of Berlin

The effect of climate change and urbanization on outdoor microclimate: A case study in Berlin

The urban overheating phenomenon is becoming significant in cities, causing extreme weather conditions that negatively affect citizen comfort and health, and increase building energy consumption. This research, in line with the objective of reducing overheating in city centers, investigates a Berlin district, in Germany, which has undertaken consistent urban evolutions during the last few years. The area falls into the Mitte, Tiergarten, and Moabit quarters and is the site of several governmental and institutional buildings, which were mainly built after 2000. Through a numerical approach, the microclimatic conditions are studied, during a representative summer day, at 3 different times: a past time (2000) before the construction of the main government buildings, a current time (2022), and a future time (2035) taking into account the new building constructions already planned for that area. The urban simulations are performed in ENVI-met, employing, for the past and current climate, weather data registered from the nearest weather station, and for the future one, provisional weather conditions developed according to the RCP 4.5 as 50% warming scenario, and RCP 8.5 as a 95% most warming scenario. Finally, by investigating 7 scenarios, the study shows the weight of climate change and of urbanization on the variation in microclimatic conditions in the considered area of Berlin.

Operationalizing the open city concept: A case study of Berlin

Framed by a utopian rhetoric, the Open City emerges as a potential guiding principle to the contradictory tendencies and calamities of cities. As an elusive concept with a panoply of context-bound interpretations, the Open City is an open-ended project that manifests through different situations across the city. The article aims to explore different attributes of the Open City, in the context of Berlin, based on a thorough literature review and operationalizes the concept using a systematized approach. Results revealed that openness in Berlin followed a center-periphery pattern, where areas that fostered a high degree of openness were mostly found in inner-city neighborhoods while a lower potential of openness prevailed along the edges. By analyzing the conditions of openness in relation to the built environment, we sought to contribute toward a better understanding of the Open City concept and provide an approach for analyzing openness that can be adapted to different geographic contexts.

School or parking lot? Selecting locations for points of distribution in urban disasters

Recent man-made and natural hazards have shown that food supply chains in high-income countries become increasingly vulnerable. Meanwhile, the population reacts very sensitively to even minor shortages. The selection of locations of distribution sites and modes for relief items is a critical part of any public sector response. This is especially challenging in urban areas, where a scarcity of empty buildings leads to the need to spontaneously convert (public) buildings or places into points of distribution. However, determining an efficient distribution strategy in terms of using the right mode at the right place is challenging. While large-scale distribution through public buildings offers a high throughput of beneficiaries, off-site distribution from trucks offers the chance to deliver goods in areas where Points of Distribution utilization is expected to be low. Therefore, we develop an approach to select modes and identify locations for the distribution of goods and apply it to a hypothetical case study in Berlin, Germany. Thereby, we identify that a combination of all modes is most effective. In a city like Berlin, the relevance of individual modes seems to depend primarily on the distance beneficiaries are willing to walk rather than on the magnitude of the disaster. Moreover, we show that the presented approach is particularly valuable in situations where a high level of service for beneficiaries is desired. Therefore, the present study yields several interesting managerial insights into a yet largely unexplored problem, contributing to an increase in resilience towards future crises.

Effective Speed: Factors That Influence the Attractiveness of Cost Effective and Sustainable Modes of Transport in Cities

Background: People invest hours of their working day to pay for their vehicle. Is this a worthwhile use of their time? Wouldn’t public transport be a more economical solution for those on low income? Which demographic group typically chooses the most effective mode of transport? Aim: The two studies presented in this paper answer those fundamental questions based on the effective speed concept. This is calculated by dividing the distance travelled by time (i.e., minutes spent travelling and earning the money to afford it). Methodology: A digital model of the residents in Berlin is created to calculate the ‘effective speed’ for everyone. In the second study, based on a survey of residents in New York City, the best mode of transport for each respondent based on their effective speed has been identified and compared to the mode chosen. Results: The results of the Berlin case study show that the mode share for cars would be less than 6% if people choose the mode of transport with the highest effective speed. A similar picture is seen in NYC. Factors that significantly affect whether people who should use public transport, do so, include: age, gender, education, place of work or home.

New neighborhood, old habits? Delivery preferences of residents in new development areas and their assessment of alternative parcel logistics concepts: a case study of Berlin

Various alternative solutions for sustainable last-mile parcel deliveries have been piloted and partially put into operation in Europe in the past decade. However, these delivery concepts have mainly been considered in inner-city areas. There are a few examples of the application of these concepts in peripheral urban areas, where new housing is being built to accommodate high population pressure. However, it is unclear whether the delivery preferences of residents in new neighbourhoods differ from those of the population average. This research conducted a case study in the western outskirts of Berlin, examining two newly built neighbourhoods and one existing residential area. Results from three survey waves of residents (N = 645) show that conventional doorstep delivery is preferred by 80% of the respondents. Nonetheless, there is a high willingness to use alternative delivery options, and respondents see benefits in climate-friendly delivery methods. This research also examines the willingness to pay for alternative parcel logistics concepts, which seems to be too low at the moment (at around €1 per shipment) to compensate for the additional costs of an operational change. However, the results also show an increasing awareness of and preferences for new delivery concepts, thus providing practical implications for planners and logistics operators alike.

Compensating for Loss of Nature and Landscape in a Growing City—Berlin Case Study

By 2030, around 194,000 new dwellings will be built in Berlin, including almost 52,000 in 16 new urban districts. These and other interventions will impact the city’s nature and landscape. An important means of compensating for these losses is a land-use planning eco-account adapted to Berlin’s needs. It relies on a whole-city compensation concept consisting of three pillars: flagship projects, thematic programmes, and the integrated enhancement of existing land uses. Impacts can be offset in advance via the eco-account. The institutional and legal backgrounds, as well as the allocation of compensations to interventions and the principle of the loss–gain calculation using value points, are presented. Housing construction and its preponed compensation trigger land-use changes. Critical factors affecting this process were identified and categorised as population development, housing requirement, resulting intervention, land-use change, and preponed compensation. A modified causal loop diagram was created to visualise the interdependencies and link the polarities of the derived key variables. The challenges of compensation without a net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as solutions for avoiding impacts to achieve the goal of no net land take, are discussed. The compensatory approach presented here could be transferred to other growing cities.

Innovation systems for controlled-environment food production in urban contexts: a dynamic case study analysis of combined plant, fish and insect production in Berlin

ABSTRACTProducing enough healthy food for a globally growing urban population within planetary boundaries requires more resource-efficient and localized food production systems. Controlled-environmental food production systems (CEFPS) are a widely discussed new approach for sustainable food production in urban contexts. However, little research has addressed innovation processes of CEFPS in urban or rural areas. This paper aims to address this research gap by adapting an innovation system perspective, developing a conceptual framework for ‘urban food production innovation systems’ (UFoPrInS) and applying it to a paradigmatic case study in Berlin. Based on a content analysis of the relevant literature and 23 semi-structured expert interviews, we analyse (a) the main characteristics and (b) the key elements of the UFoPrInS and their relationships during different stages of the innovation process. The case results show that UFoPrInS faces various challenges related to possible structural failures that can occur in infrastructure, interactions, capabilities of actors and institutions. The current institutional framework at EU and national level was seen as the major barrier to innovations. To support new food production innovations, a comprehensive regulatory framework for CEFPS is needed that considers in an integrated approach the specifics of (1) the highly-intensive production processes, (2) the diverse types of products and (3) the urban location.

Pop-up cycling infrastructure as a niche innovation for sustainable transportation in European cities: An inter- and transdisciplinary case study of Berlin

• Air quality measurements show that pop-up bike lanes reduce cyclists’ exposure to NO 2 . • Survey data shows high social acceptance for pop-up bike lanes. • Usage data reveals 73% increase in cycling on the pop-up bike lane. • Pre-existing multi-actor collaboration enabled fast infrastructure implementation. • Pop-up bike lanes can accelerate the implementation of the mobility transition. Mobility behavior changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have opened a window of opportunity for an accelerated transition towards sustainable mobility. Many European cities installed temporary cycling infrastructure which can be considered a niche innovation in the Multi-Level-Perspective of transitions (Geels, 2002). We empirically assess the effects of such temporary infrastructure in terms of air quality, behaviour, and acceptance, with a focus on the city of Berlin, Germany. The numerous pop-up bike lanes installed serve as an inter- and transdisciplinary case study to systematically capture these effects. We conducted a survey among Berlin citizens (n= 1,661), analysed cycling usage data, and measured the exposure of cyclists to air quality before and after the implementation of one pop-up bike lane during the first wave of COVID-19. Results show that pop-up bike lanes receive high levels of acceptance, increase cycling usage on the respective street, and reduce cyclists’ exposure to nitrogen dioxide. Their implementation fosters an innovative mind-set of transport planning: to temporarily try out new street designs, learn from these practical experiences, improve the designs, and then permanently implement the ones best proven in practice. We conclude that PUBL can accelerate the regime shift from car-oriented to bicycle-friendly cities because of its many demonstrated positive impacts.

Perceived environmental barriers and facilitators of refugee children’s physical activity in/around refugee accommodation: a qualitative case study in Berlin

BackgroundPrevious research have identified built environmental attributes associated with refugee children’s physical activity (PA); however, there is a lack of research focusing on refugee children’s environmental perceptions at the individual level. We examined the perceived environmental barriers and facilitators of refugee children’s PA.MethodsPerceptions of PA environments by refugee children (n = 15, 6 to 13 years old) and their parents (n = 10) were captured by questionnaires and drawing workshops from one refugee accommodation in Berlin. Besides, photovoice was conducted with three children to obtain an in-depth understanding of their experiences of existing environments for PA. Research was applied between June and July 2019. All research material was transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsRefugee children and their parents identified micro-environments as the centre of children’s daily PA, they usually played indoors but most parents perceived there was no spaces. In meso environments, children and parents thought there were insufficient spaces and were worried about neighbourhood safety. Furthermore, parents concerned more about ‘space accessibility’ for their children’s playing purposes instead of ‘space quality (e.g., equipment)’ . Children also indicated the importance of informal spaces for their PA.ConclusionsRefugee children perceive a lack of space and safety when attempting to play in the existing micro and meso environments. Related practitioners should focus on providing more play spaces in micro environments and safe access to existing neighbourhood playfields. These efforts can augment much-needed research on strategies to better integrate refuge facilities to their urban context and essential in minimising current health and spatial inequality issues these vulnerable groups face across Germany and worldwide.

Applying social life cycle assessment to evaluate the use phase of mobility services: a case study in Berlin

PurposeThe main purpose of this S-LCA case study is to analyse social impacts of the use phase of mobility services is a holistic way, taking into account positive as well as negative impacts. The use phase plays an important role for the assessment of services, which is why this study exclusively focuses on the use phase assessment. That way, this study aims to contribute to answer the question whether mobility services can improve quality of life in cities.MethodsFor the analysis, seven different mobility options were chosen in the city of Berlin, Germany, including free-floating car sharing, e-scooter sharing, S-Bahn, subway, tram, bus and the car in private ownership. For the analysis, five stakeholder groups that are outlined in the S-LCA Guidelines (UNEP 2020) were taken into account: Local Community, Consumer, Worker, Value Chain Actors and Society. For a detailed analysis of all relevant aspects, 37 indicators were analysed, out of which 23 are quantitative and 14 are qualitative. For data collection, several different data sources were used, including publicly available data e.g. from statistics as well as own data from interviews.Results and discussionFor comparability, all results are displayed on a 5-point scale from − 2 to + 2, in line with the Handbook (Goedkoop et al. 2018) and the S-LCA Guidelines (UNEP 2020). For some indicators, the results of the case study are as expected, for example regarding impacts on air quality. For other indicators, however, the results are specific for the analysed mobility services in Berlin and therefore give new insights and reveal new aspects, as for example in the case of job creation for the local community. The main challenge of this S-LCA case study was data availability and data quality, which is why assumptions and simplifications had to be made, especially regarding space occupancy and the allocation of common infrastructure.ConclusionsThis S-LCA case study provides a holistic assessment of the use phase of mobility services, taking into account five stakeholder categories and their respective social impacts. The study illustrates specific results for the city of Berlin, showing positive as well as negative social impacts of mobility services and outlines a procedure for further studies. That way, this case study contributes to answer the overlying question whether mobility services can improve quality of life in cities.

Modeling neighborhood-scale shallow geothermal energy utilization: a case study in Berlin

Nowadays, utilizing shallow geothermal energy for heating and cooling buildings has received increased interest in the building sector. Among different technologies, large borehole heat exchanger arrays are widely employed to supply heat to various types of buildings. Recently, a 16-borehole array was constructed to extract shallow geothermal energy to provide heat to a newly-developed public building in Berlin. To guarantee the quality of the numerical model and reveal its sensitivity to different subsurface conditions, model simulations were conducted for 25 years with two finite element simulators, namely the open-source code OpenGeoSys and the widely applied commercial software FEFLOW. Given proper numerical settings, the simulation results from OpenGeoSys and FEFLOW are in good agreement. However, further analysis reveals differences with respect to borehole inflow temperature calculation implemented in the two software. It is found that FEFLOW intrinsically uses the outflow temperature from the previous time step to determine the current inflow temperature, which makes it capable of much faster simulation by avoiding iterations within a single time step. In comparison, OpenGeoSys always updates the inflow and outflow temperature based on their current time step values. Because the updates are performed after each iteration, it delivers more accurate results with the expense of longer simulation time. Based on this case study, OpenGeoSys is a valid alternative to FEFLOW for modeling ground source heat pump systems. For modellers working in this field, it is thus recommended to adopt small enough time step size, so that potential numerical error can be avoided.

Copper leaching from recreational vessel antifouling paints in freshwater: A Berlin case study

Copper leached from recreational vessel antifouling paints can pose a threat to aquatic organisms. To date, leaching rates have mainly been studied in seawater and brackish water. The aim of this study was to investigate the copper input from antifouling paints to freshwater using field and laboratory studies. Therefore, a large sailing area in Berlin was sampled. According to a risk assessment, the use of copper containing antifouling paints in Berlins is predicted to have no significant impact on aquatic organisms. An exception was found in sport boat marinas where, in dependence on the boat number, the sediment copper concentrations were up to 2 times higher than the German environmental quality standard for sediments. The most important result revealed by the laboratory batch tests is that the copper leaching rate in freshwater is much lower compared to seawater and brackish water. The dissolution of copper from antifouling paints into freshwater is overestimated up to now. Nevertheless, the leached copper from antifouling paints is the second largest anthropogenic copper source in the urban area of Berlin and the third largest anthropogenic copper source in German freshwaters.

How Much Can Small-Scale Wind Energy Production Contribute to Energy Supply in Cities? A Case Study of Berlin

In light of the global effort to limit the temperature rise, many cities have undertaken initiatives to become climate-neutral, making decentralized urban energy production more relevant. This paper addresses the potential of urban wind energy production with small wind turbines, using Berlin as an example. A complete framework from data selection to economic feasibility is constructed to enable the empirical assessment of wind energy for individual buildings and Berlin as a whole. Based on a detailed dataset of all buildings and hourly wind speed on a 1 km2 grid, the results show that multiple turbines on suitable buildings can significantly contribute to households’ energy consumption but fall short of covering the full demand. For individual households, our economic evaluation strongly recommends the self-consumption of the produced electricity. The findings suggest that while the use of small wind turbines should be continuously encouraged, exploring other renewable resources or combination of wind and photovoltaic energy in the urban environment remains important.

Automated detecting and placing road objects from street-level images

Navigation services utilized by autonomous vehicles or ordinary users require the availability of detailed information about road-related objects and their geolocations, especially at road intersections. However, these road intersections are generally represented as point elements without detailed information, or are even not available in current versions of crowdsourced mapping databases including OpenStreetMap (OSM). This study proposes an approach to automatically detect road objects from street-level images and place them to correct locations according to urban rules. Our processing pipeline relies on two convolutional neural networks: the first one segments the images, while the second one detects and classifies the specific objects. Moreover, to locate the detected objects, we propose an attributed topological binary tree (ATBT) based on urban rules for each image in an image sequence to depict the coherent relations of topologies, attributes and semantics of the road objects. Then the ATBT is further matched with map features on OSM to determine the right placed location. The proposed method has been applied to a case study in Berlin, Germany. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed method on two object classes: traffic signs and traffic lights. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed app roach provides promising results in terms of completeness and positional accuracy.

Managing an Exhibition Project in the Midst of the Covid-19-Pandemic: A Case Study in Berlin, Germany

This paper focuses on the experience of managing an exhibition project, undertaken by young professionals from the Museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin during the Covid-19 pandemic. The exhibition Status. Power. Movement was on display at the Berlin Cultural Forum (Kulturforum) from September 2020 to February 2021. In this interdisciplinary project, 13 co-curators selected 130 objects from 14 collections and asked how status is represented in movement. This article provides insight into how we experienced and dealt with the creation of our first exhibition amid an unprecedented crisis. Our project was confronted with the reality of the unfolding pandemic and empty museums. Key questions and concerns arose, such as: can the exhibition be opened? How to manage the planning uncertainty and, furthermore, how to deal with this ubiquitous event in our exhibition? As a result of the considerable restrictions, communication processes within the team and collaboration with external partners became extremely difficult. Our contribution adds a critical perspective from young professionals to the now-familiar discourse around museum work during a pandemic. In it, we share solutions we developed during the crisis, such as a Covid-19 themed intervention and the development of an online format for the exhibition. We additionally aim to show how we adapted our communication processes amid the crisis, working within a large cultural institution with multiple structural layers. Drawing on our experiences, we discuss issues of museum risk and crisis management. We also underline the need for a new critical discourse that would enable professionals to share experiences, responses and solutions to the ongoing pandemic and future crisis situations.

Energy Efficiency Assessment of Rail Freight Transport: Freight Tram in Berlin

Freight tram systems can potentially reduce commercial road vehicle use and, consequently, reduce congestion, accidents, air pollution, noise levels, and road maintenance costs. This paper explores the new application for the urban rail system as a sustainable solution for urban freight distribution. A significant problem in using rail for urban freight is determining the most efficient tram route, in terms of related costs and accessibility for the distribution centers and end-users. The study takes a systematic approach, based on identifying scenarios, existing tramlines, traveled distances, and time durations, and appraises the scheme through an energy consumption analysis to assess a hypothetical freight tram scheme. In a German case study in Berlin, a freight tram system delivered the goods of five delivery companies from their logistics hubs in the Pankow district to a micro depot instead of to the trucks. Three different path scenarios from logistics hubs to the micro depot were developed, to make comparisons based on energy consumption. Freight tram implementation in Berlin (compared to the current situation) resulted in a reduction of more than 7 tons of CO2 emissions per year, and 60 road-vehicle-kilometers per day, in exchange for 275 MJ of daily electric consumption.