Transport Interaction Model Research Articles

Incorporating Land Use and Transport Interaction Models to Evaluate Active Mobility Measures and Interventions in Urban Areas: A case study in Southampton, UK

New transport strategies, which aspire to create sustainable and resilient cities, prioritize active and public transport modes. This paper investigates the differences in accessibility, mobility and activity patterns as a result of radical road space allocation changes. To do so, the TRANUS Land Use and Transport Interaction model is utilized. Also, the city of Southampton is selected as a case study and four scenarios inspired by the city's ongoing or planned active travel initiatives are the “Business as Usual” (BAU) scenario, the “Southampton Cycling Network” (SCN) scenario, the “Traffic Calming” (TC) scenario, and the “Combined” scenario, which involves the simultaneous deployment of both test scenarios. In the SCN scenario, the proportion of bicycle trips has noticeably risen, whereas in the TC scenario, public transport usage is maintained. Meanwhile, the Combined scenario significantly diminishes the appeal of private motorized transport over the long term. Regarding the impacts on activities, urban sprawl and the creation of new urban centres are observed in all scenarios. Interestingly, the SCN and combined scenarios have similarities in land use effects, but this happens because accessibility increases in peripheral zones in the former, whereas it reduces in central zones in the latter.

A land-use transport-interaction framework for large scale strategic urban modeling

We introduce a family of land use transportation interaction (LUTI) models which enable future employment, population and flows or trips between these activities to be explained and predicted. We begin by focusing on the generic spatial interaction model, noting the ways in which its components reflect demand and supply at different locations measured in terms of employment and working population. This suggests an equilibrium structure which is our starting point in developing a simplified version of the model which we extend to deal with four different activity sectors – housing, retail activities, schools, and health facilities. We use this generic structure to develop four related versions of the generic LUTI model equations for residential populations, retailing, education and hospitals which are all driven by employment in terms of where people live and work. This constitutes our integrated framework that we use in calibrating, that is fine-tuning the model to three urban areas (cities) in Europe: to Oxford and its county, Turin and its region, and Athens in its hinterland of Attica reflecting population volumes from 700,000, 1.7 million and 3.8 million persons respectively. In each case, we use the models to predict the impact of different scenarios – new housing developments in Oxfordshire, new universities and metro lines in Turin, and economic development in the Athens region. We describe the details of these scenarios in Supplementary Information (SI) which shows the versatility of using the models to examine such impacts and we conclude with directions for improving the various models and nesting them at different scales within the land use-transport planning process.

An application of land use, transport, and economy interaction model

Governments need to assess the benefits of transport projects to prioritize investments. It is imperative for governments to have tools that can closely estimate the actual benefits and impacts of investments in significant transport projects.Traditionally, the benefits of a transport project have been estimated by using a transport model, assuming fixed land use for the base and project case in the future. However, this approach cannot measure the impact of land-use changes as residents and businesses relocate to take advantage of lower travel and/or freight costs resulting from the project. Consequently, the benefits of the project may be under or overestimated, depending on its position within the transport network and how it reshapes land use patterns in the future. To overcome this drawback in existing models, this paper firstly presents a literature review of advances in the land use transport interaction model (LUTI), then discusses the development of a LUTI model for Victoria, Australia (VLUTI) by integrating the Victorian Integrated Transport Model with a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium model (SCGE). The land use component (SCGE) was developed to represent a highly resolved zone system, detailed classifications of occupations and industries, and spatial interactions via commuting, and trade in goods and services, and thus enables VLUTI to simulate a detailed and nuanced picture of land use and transport interactions in a complete economic environment.The literature review also indicates limited research in applying a LUTI to estimate land use change benefits. This paper presents an application of VLUTI by looking at differences in the conventional transport benefits under both static and dynamic land use scenarios. In the static method, the land use in the project case is unchanged from the base case. In the dynamic case, the land use in the project case, at a future point in time, is endogenously adjusted within VLUTI. It presents a method to correct, in the dynamic case, the benefits as estimated by the rule of a half, which usually assumes static land use. The paper concludes with suggestions for further developments and improvements of VLUTI such as incorporating an activity-based transport model and an environmental model to progress toward an integrated land-use, transport, economy, and environment model capable of assessing the full impact of a transport project in a holistic way.

Using Land Use and Transportation Interaction (LUTI) models to determine land use effects from new vehicle transportation technologies; a regional scale of analysis

Advances in automotive engineering have brought about a range of new vehicle technologies, such as automation, connectivity and electrification, which are expected to have multiple effects on different aspects of people's lives and have the potential of radically transforming the transportation status quo. This paper explores the effects that such new technologies can have on land use by employing a Land Use and Transportation Interaction (LUTI) modelling approach. A new methodology is developed to simulate the effects of automation, connectivity and electrification on accessibility and to conduct a sensitivity analysis. The analysis is carried out on a regional scale to determine the effects of the new technologies on multiple cities that form a region. The case study for this application is the region of the West Midlands (UK). The results suggest that new vehicle technologies can affect accessibility, population and employment in the cities of the region, the region itself, as well as the peripheral zones beyond the boundary of the region in a 15-year modelling period. Most notably, the two main urban cores of the region are found to not lose their financial power, despite increases in employment opportunities and population density in more rural outskirts. The increased accessibility also results in the relocation of lower-income households to places with lower housing rent. The sensitivity analysis shows that these findings are mostly impacted by changes in road capacity (which is expected to be generally higher as a result of these new technologies), as well as different penetration levels in the fleet.

Modified Traffic Analysis Zones Approach for the Estimation of Passenger Flow Distribution in Urban Areas

This research captures the complex interaction between land use and transportation in an urban context. Even though several land use–transport interaction models at both micro and macro levels are available, there is a necessity to address the intermediate-level model with acceptable accuracy and without intensive data requirement. Further, consideration of road networks and land use in the traffic analysis zone demarcation is a significant requirement to enhance accuracy in estimating passenger flow distribution. This research provides a methodology to identify modified traffic analysis zones (MTAZs) based on traffic flow distribution and to redistribute macrolevel trip origins and destinations into MTAZs considering the road network and land-use character of the area. The core objective of the research is to develop a methodology to demonstrate the relationship between trip production/attraction and land use, to propose a method to redistribute macrolevel origin-destination data into MTAZs based on the identified relationship and to propose a method to assign estimated traffic flows to the road links. The methodology intends to guide the land use and transportation decision making. The methodology is developed based on both spatial and statistical analysis utilizing software and tools, such as ArcMAP, SPSS, and MS Excel. A case study covering the Colombo Municipal Council area, which is located within Colombo District, Western Province, Sri Lanka, is presented to demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology. According to the validation results, the proposed methodology has increased the accuracy of passenger flow estimation compared with the administrative zone-based conventional passenger flow estimation methodologies.

A hypothetical urban layout generation model for exploring land use impacts on travel behavior

In urban planning, land-use policies are commonly applied to reduce automobile travel and encourage active transport because land use is believed to affect travel behavior. However, a debate about such effects continues in literature. Empirical studies differing in context, methodology, and geographic scale come to different results. Although questioned because of self-selection, the accumulated empirical evidence provides a solid foundation for conducting simulation research that helps systematically examine the effects of land use attributes on travel behavior. This paper introduces an urban layout generation (ULG) model specially developed for simulations. The ULG model is not a land use and transport interaction model. It generates hypothetical urban layouts corresponding directly to D-variables, a set of land use measurements widely used in empirical studies. The D-variables are controlled on multiple spatial scales in the ULG model. Besides the spatial aspects of the road network and land use commonly included in virtual city models, the ULG model also simulates the population density. Performance tests showed the ability of the ULG model to generate hypothetical though reasonable urban layouts which meet the requirements of simulation research of land use and travel behavior. Finally, several examples combing the ULG model and a travel behavior simulation model show potential applications of the ULG model.

Unravelling the dynamics behind the urban morphology of port-cities using a LUTI model based on cellular automata

The urban morphology is characterised by self-organisation where interactions of multiple agents produce emerging patterns on the urban form. Port-urban relationship added to the complexity of port cities' urban form. Most urban cellular automata (CA) models simulate land-use evolution through transition rules representing multi-factored local interactions. However, calibration of CA-based urban land use and transport interaction (LUTI) models often utilise manual methods due to complexity of the process. This limits insights on urban interactions to a few explored settlements and prevents applications for planning and assessment of transport policies in other contexts. This paper, therefore, addresses three main points. The paper (i) demonstrates an improved method for the calibration of CA-based LUTI models, (ii) contributes to a better understanding of the urban dynamics in port city systems by quantifying generalizable interactions from a wide range of port-urban settlements, and (iii) illustrates how the use of these interactions in a simulation model can allow long-term impact predictions of planning interventions.These were done by formulating a model in a similar structure as a neural network model to enable automatic calibration using an application of the gradient-descent algorithm. The model was then used to quantify the dynamics between land-use, geographic, and transport factors in 46 port-based and 10 non-port settlements across Great Britain, thus enabling cross-sectional analysis. Cluster analysis of the calibrated interactions in the study areas was conducted to examine the variations of these interactions. This produced two main groups. In the first group, consisting larger settlements, connections between ports and other urban activities were weaker than in the second group which consisted of smaller port-settlements. Overall, the findings of the research are consistent with existing evidence in the port-cities literature but go further in quantifying the interaction between urban agents within port-urban systems of various sizes and types. These quantified interactions will enable planners to better predict the longer-term consequences of their interventions.

A consolidated summary on the evolution of a dynamic tumbling mill model

A mechanistic model for tumbling mills was developed based on breakage characteristics and tumbling mill operational features. The concept was presented at the IMPC (International Mineral Processing Congress) 2014, followed by progress in a sub-process of the model presented at the IMPC 2016. Additionally, a number of papers on the sub-models and breakage function have been published. This paper provides a consolidated summary of the outcomes and status of the model. The overall model structure is presented along with the sub-models such as appearance functions, breakage rate functions, energy distribution, transport, and dual component grinding interaction model. The strengths and capabilities of the model structure as achieved to date are presented.The approach developed can be used as a platform for building multicomponent models. The modelling work can be done quicker by using an existing structure such as the one presented in this paper. It is recommended that researchers assess compatibility prior to embarking on model development work if the intention is to use this model structure.

A Cellular Automata Model for Integrated Simulation of Land Use and Transport Interactions

Cellular automata (CA) models have been used in urban studies for dealing with land use change. Transport and accessibility are arguably the main drivers of urban change and have a direct influence on land use. Land use and transport interaction models deal with the complexity of this relationship using many different approaches. CA models incorporate these drivers, but usually consider transport (and accessibility) variables as exogenous. Our paper presents a CA model where transport variables are endogenous to the model and are calibrated along with the land use variables to capture the interdependent complexity of these phenomena. The model uses irregular cells and a variable neighborhood to simulate land use change, taking into account the effect of the road network. Calibration is performed through a particle swarm algorithm. We present an application of the model to a comparison of scenarios for the construction of a ring road in the city of Coimbra, Portugal. The results show the ability of the CA model to capture the influence of change of the transport network (and thus in accessibility) in the land use dynamics.

A new framework for very large-scale urban modelling

The generation of ever-bigger data sets pertaining to the distribution of activities in cities is paralleled by massive increases in computer power and memory that are enabling very large-scale urban models to be constructed. Here we present an effort to extend traditional land use–transport interaction (LUTI) models to extensive spatial systems so that they are able to track increasingly wide repercussions on the location of population, employment and related distributions of spatial interactions. The prototype model framework we propose and implement called QUANT is available anywhere, at any time, at any place, and is open to any user. It is characterised as a set of web-based services within which simulation, visualisation and scenario generation are configured. We begin by presenting the core spatial interaction model built around the journey to work, and extend this to deal with many sectors. We detail the computational environment, with a focus on the size of the problem which is an application to a 8436 zone system comprising England, Scotland and Wales generating matrices of around 71 million cells. We detail the data and spatial system, showing how we extend the model to visualise spatial interactions as vector fields and accessibility indicators. We briefly demonstrate the implementation of the model and outline how we can generate the impact of changes in employment and changes in travel costs that enable transport modes to compete for travellers. We conclude by indicating that the power of the new framework consists of running hundreds of ‘what if?’ scenarios which let the user immediately evaluate their impacts and then evolve new and better ones.

Modeling the Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles on Land Use Using a LUTI Model

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can generate major changes in urban systems due to their ability to use road infrastructures more efficiently and shorten trip times. However, there is great uncertainty about these effects and about whether the use of these vehicles will continue to be private, in continuity with the current paradigm, or whether they will become shared (carsharing/ridesharing). In order to try to shed light on these matters, the use of a scenario-based methodology and the evaluation of the scenarios using a land use–transport interaction model (LUTI model TRANSPACE) is proposed. This model allows simulating the impacts that changes in the transport system can generate on the location of households and companies oriented to local demand and accessibility conditions. The obtained results allow us to state that, if AVs would generate a significant increase in the capacity of urban and interurban road infrastructures, the impacts on mobility and on the location of activities could be positive, with a decrease in the distances traveled, trip times, and no evidence of significant urban sprawl processes. However, if these increases in capacity are accompanied by a large augment in the demand for shared journeys by new users (young, elderly) or empty journeys, the positive effects could disappear. Thus, this scenario would imply an increase in trip times, reduced accessibilities, and longer average distances traveled, all of which could cause the unwanted effect of expelling activities from the consolidated urban center.

Spatial and territorial developments for life cycle assessment applied to urban mobility—case study on Lyon area in France

Purpose The environmental assessment of urban mobility, defined as the movement of people in an urban area, exceeds the scope of transportation life cycle assessment (LCA) with spatial, territorial and even social considerations. The objective of this study is to develop an original interdisciplinary method based on LCA coupled with a land use and transport interaction (LUTI) model to better consider spatial and territorial dimensions in an environmental assessment of urban mobility. Methods Spatial and territorial issues emerge in all LCA stages for urban mobility, and this study illustrates them with an application on the Lyon urban area. To consider most individual daily trips, the geographical boundary is related to the area of influence of the city and the functional boundary includes all transportation modes, with motorized, public and non-motorized transports. The life cycle inventories (LCIs) combined EcoInvent 3.2 inventories with a specific LUTI model, named SIMBAD, local mobility surveys and an emissions and consumptions model (COPERT5). These refinements allow a spatial environmental impacts assessment of urban mobility, expressed per inhabitant per day, at different residential locations and open opportunities to develop precise assessment methods for local air pollutants with detailed description on both population and pollution concentrations. Results and discussion At territorial scale, this study highlights the major contribution to environmental impacts from private cars (around 90%) and the relevance to consider fuel, vehicle, and infrastructure life cycles in a mobility assessment. Spatial interpretations show important variability in function of residential locations and urban form characteristics related to different mobility behaviours, distance travelled and transport technologies used. Through the proposed assessment method for local air pollution impacts on human health, hotspots are revealed in the urban area, especially in the urban centre or along main road axes. In order to test our methodology and open discussions on mobility solutions, two contrasted scenarios are explored on compact city and vehicle electrification both presenting impact transfers between global indicators or with the air pollution exposure indicator. Conclusions Urban mobility and its related environmental burden are not only related to technological choices but are also related to spatial characteristics and territorial context. The combination of urban and spatial tools and data, such as LUTI model, with the LCA methodology improves the local representativeness of environmental assessment of mobility and enlarges the ranges of analysis and perspective. Nonetheless, improvements remain to be made in relation to ongoing developments on spatialized and territorial LCA.

Integrated modelling of autonomous electric vehicle diffusion: From review to conceptual design

The future Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are likely to be electric. We started with a review of the adoption of AVs, Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Autonomous Electric Vehicles (AEVs), as well as the six associated urban sub-systems, namely transportation, land use, environment, energy, economy, and population systems, in order to find evidence about the linkages and interactions between the diffusion of AEVs and the six sub-systems. Based on the review, we argued that an integrated urban model, which takes the linkages and interactions into account, was needed to fully understand the adoption and impacts of AEVs. Furthermore, we conducted a conceptual design of an integrated model for AEVs (without explicit modelling), and demonstrated how to update an existing agent-based Land Use and Transport Interaction (LUTI) model by incorporating AEV components. The resulting integrated model of AEVs would help different AEV-related stakeholders (e.g., local authorities) in their decision-making.

Equity analysis in access to Public Transport through a Land Use Transport Interaction Model. Application to Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area-Colombia.

The development of the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area (BMA) under criteria focused on the expansion of residential and commercial sectors without considering transportation has produced a congested network and an increase in illegal mobility. A solution was articulating the city through Metrolinea Integrated Transport System (MITS) that not represents an optimal solution yet. Users prefer long-lasting trips by car rather than using public transportation. The absence of methods for assessing transportation deficiency in an agile manner more according to dynamic changes does not allow taking optimal decisions promptly. This research proposes a methodology that fuses a transport model using Visum software and a land-use model implemented in the Python language to analyze access to public transportation, i.e., using four integrated sub-models: transport, residential location, location of economic activities, and accessibility. Analysis of global equity using social indexes to measure the level of need for service and infrastructure was key to proper territory modeling. Results not only indicate where MITS is inefficient but also were could be useful to assess future behaviour considering socio-economic variables, land use, and new infrastructure.

Residential Location, Mobility, and Travel Time: A Pilot Study in a Small-Size Italian Metropolitan Area

This research concerns the topic of Land Use and Transport Interaction (LUTI) models. In particular, the patterns between residential households’ location and mobility choices are analyzed and simulated. The attributes that influence household residential location choices belong to four categories: socioeconomic and mobility attributes of households and/or of their components; land use; real-estate market; transport system. The paper presents the results of a pilot study on households’ location and mobility patterns in the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria (Southern Italy). The pilot study is divided into two stages. In the first stage, a survey allowed to collect information and identify existing patterns about residential and mobility choices of a sample of households. In the second stage, a residential location model is proposed and some preliminary calibrations are presented in a prototypal way. The pilot study could be extended and improved in terms of spatial extension and sample dimension in order to allow a complete specification-calibration-validation process of the model. The model development can support the land use-transport planning process in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria.

A quantitative analysis of potential impacts of automated vehicles in Austria using a dynamic integrated land use and transport interaction model

ObjectiveDigitisation and automation are expected to change the transport system and settlement structures in a disruptive way. Due to new developments in sensor and communication technology different business models of automated vehicles (AV) - such as private AV, car-sharing-AV, ride-sharing-AV and public transport-AV – are likely to enter the transport market. Further, different penetration rates of AVs, extension of user groups (elderly and young, people without driving licenses etc.), different cost scenarios of AV veh-kms, parking regimes/fees, etc. will have significant impact on future transport demand. The objective of the work presented in this paper was to develop a simulation-based approach to analyse the potential impacts of different vehicle automation scenarios in Austria. MethodA multitude of complex cause-effect-chains and feedback loops characterise the relationship between AV take up, travel demand and environmental effects. The method of System Dynamics (SD) is designed to deal with such complexities. As a first step the qualitative method of Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) was used to identify all potential automation related factors influencing the attractiveness of car and public transport use. In a second step the identified factors were coded into an operational version of the Stock-Flow based land use and transport interaction model MARS (Metropolitan Activity Relocation Simulator). As a third step sensitivity tests and scenarios were defined and simulated. Finally the resulting quantitative impacts were assessed and discussed. ResultsIn this paper we describe briefly how MARS was adapted to be able to simulate the effects of different AV-take up rates on the national level of Austria. Simulation results are presented for the scenario elements road capacity, remote parking, value of travel time, access for new user groups in the business models private car, car-sharing and ride-sharing and automation of the first and last mile in public transport. The results show that with a fleet share of 90% of private AVs in 2050, the nationwide changes in veh-kms travelled are between −2% (impact on road capacity) and +22 percent (new user groups in the case of AVs as private cars). Policy implicationsAn uncontrolled market take-up of AVs into the transport system will very likely increase the dependency on motorized transport, veh-kms driven and related emissions. Compensating policies have to be implemented in parallel to avoid un-sustainable developments.

A LUTI microsimulation framework to evaluate long-term impacts of automated mobility on the choice of housing-mobility bundles

Land use–transportation interaction models can be useful planning support systems to assess the long-term implications of emerging transportation technologies like mobility-on-demand and automated vehicles. We propose an agent-based simulation framework ( SimMobility Long-Term) that uses econometrically robust behavioral models to model the potential impacts of accessibility changes in “car-lite” communities on the choice of housing-mobility bundles. Residential relocation and private mobility holding decisions are jointly considered in a sequential simulation modeling approach. Different types of market responses to the car-lite pilot are modeled through various scenarios via assumptions of changes in model parameters, and compared to a baseline where the car-lite pilot is never implemented. A comparatively vehicle-free study area with a low vacancy rate is chosen to obtain conservative estimates of policy impacts. Our findings indicate that initial awareness of the pilot is quite effective in making the study area more vehicle-free relative to the baseline. However, as market effects start impacting housing prices and bidding results, the vehicle-free gains are significantly reduced due to neighborhood gentrification. In conclusion, we highlight how land use–transportation interaction models can be used to explore market dynamics to see where market pressures matter, along with the need to align car-lite policies with market conditions regarding vacancy and car ownership rates.

Residential Location Econometric Choice Modeling with Irregular Zoning: Common Border Spatial Correlation Metric

Residential location choice (RLC) predicts where and how people choose their residential location in the framework of land use–transport interaction models (LUTI). This paper seeks an efficient RLC model in the context of irregular zoning of location alternatives. The main current proposals in the field are discrete choice models. In RLC modeling, the alternatives are spatial units, and spatially correlated logit (SCL) is an efficient approach when the analyst cannot pre-define groups of alternatives that efficiently reflect the systematic substitution patterns among the alternatives. The SCL uses the spatial information on the contiguity of the zones to determine spatial correlation among the alternatives. Urban residential location choice usually uses administrative zoning, which is very irregular in many cities (mainly historic cities); however, SCL is not efficient in this context owing to the limitations of the binary contiguity spatial variable employed as a spatial correlation metric (SCM). This paper proposes an extension of the mixed SCL model, with an SCM based on the proportion of common border length in contiguous zones, which is more efficient in the irregular urban zoning context. The proposed model is applied to an urban case study of LUTI RLC modeling with irregular zoning, based on the administrative divisions of the city of Santander (Spain) and is shown to be empirically more efficient than the previous approaches.

Modelling urban spatial impacts of land-use/ transport policies

China is now experiencing rapid urbanization. Powerful tools are required to assess its urban spatial policies before implemented toward a more competitive and sustainable development paradigm. This study develops a Land Use Transport Interaction (LUTI) model to evaluate the impacts of urban land-use policies on urban spatial development. The model consists of four sub-models, i.e., transport, residential location, employment location and real estate rent sub-models. It is then applied to Beijing metropolitan area to forecast the urban activity evolution trend based on the land-use policies between 2009 and 2013. The modeling results show that more and more residents and enterprises in the city choose to agglomerate on outskirts, and new centers gradually emerge to share the services originally delivered by central Beijing. The general trend verifies the objectives of the government plan to develop more sub-centers around Beijing. The proposed activity-based model provides a distinct tool for the urban spatial policy makers in China. Further research is also discussed at the end.

Future mobility and land use scenarios: impact assessment with an urban case study

In recent years the interest in urban mobility has grown considerably, not only due to the local increase in negative externalities generated by transport, but also because recent technological innovations are offering effective solutions especially in urban context. In particular, the introduction of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) could radically change the mobility scenario allowing, on the one hand, a widespread diffusion of shared vehicles that could feed the stations of the mass rapid transit network, improving the attractiveness of Public Transportation (PT), and on the other, the implementation of Travel Demand Management (TDM) measures on large areas of the most densely urbanized (and congested) territory of a city, without reducing accessibility and creating social exclusion. The present study aims at evaluating, through a system of Land-Use Transportation Interaction (LUTI) models, the impacts on transport demand and on population and activities location, of transportation policies oriented to both enhancing PT and restricting the individual use of the car. The case study analyzed is represented by the urban area of Rome. Several scenarios have been simulated and compared by means of sustainability indicators. Preliminary results show that the improvement of PT services, combined with the introduction of car use restriction and car free areas, do induce not only a significant modal shift towards more sustainable transportation modes, but also a limitation of urban sprawl.