Nariida Smith

A framework for linking urban form and air quality

Abstract The importance of urban form in the quest for sustainable development has been recognised in a number of countries in recent years. However, there has been limited progress in bringing environmental planning into the sphere of urban systems planning. This situation can be largely attributed to the absence of advanced integrated land use– transport–environment modelling tools capable of analysing the behaviour of complex, dynamic systems. This paper describes an initial attempt to develop a framework for integrating land use, transport and airshed models for evaluating the effect of city form on air quality. The framework identifies the relationship between various components such as the GIS database, the land use–transport–environment module and the airshed model. Issues concerning the structure and robustness of the framework are discussed and results from a recent air quality inquiry are presented.

Assessing Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Abatement Measures on Urban Freight

Abstract A study to investigate the sensitivity of urban freight patterns to various greenhouse abatement policy measures is underway with Metropolitan Sydney being used as the case study area due to the availability of detailed freight and passenger network level data and models at the New South Wales Transport Data Centre (TDC). The study is designed to build on methodologies under development by TDC to derive freight traffic due to total requirements for freight and relative requirements for categories of goods from actual or forecasted commodity flows and associated information. This paper describes the selection of candidate policy measures for investigation and presents the methodology and processes used in modelling their impacts on urban freight patterns. The discussion will focus on six scenarios which provide policy instruments for application to a 1996 base case. Some results of the modelling of these scenarios will then be presented and issues arising from the study discussed. Special attention will be given to the relative changes in travel characteristics and emissions brought about by these instruments.

E-Business Challenges for Intermodal Freight: Some International Comparisons

Separate Canadian and Australian government-sponsored studies, both reporting in mid-2001, have investigated expected impacts of rapid growth in e-business on transportation infrastructure and services. The different viewpoints of these two studies allow consideration of implications for freight transportation in general and intermodal freight in particular. The findings reported, relating to supply chain changes, special challenges for rail- and sea-freight carriers, and changes in requirements for freight warehousing and interchange, have international relevance, which leads to suggested policy responses. The importance of e-business in affecting freight transportation should not be underestimated. Transportation experts interviewed in the Australian study unanimously considered this the issue of most consequence for transportation over the next 5 to 10 years. Both studies point to freight transportation having significant potential to aid economic growth from e-business and conversely to a lack of appropriate infrastructure to accommodate that growth.

Simultaneous modelling of multi-purpose/multi-stop activity patterns and quantities consumed

Abstract. Whereas for commuting travel there is a one-to-one correspondence between commuters and jobs, and for commodity flows a one-to-one correspondence between the size of orders and the shipping cost of the commodities, the situation is much more complex for retail/service travel. A typical shopper may make a single trip or multi-stop tour to buy/consume a quite diverse set of commodities/services at different locations in quite variable quantities. At the same time, the general pattern of the tour is clearly dependent on the activities and goods available at potential stops. These interdependencies have been alluded to in the literature, especially by spatial economists. However, until some preliminary work by the first author, there has been no attempt to formally include these interdependencies in a general model. This paper presents a framework for achieving this goal by developing an evolutionary set of models starting from the simplest forms available. From the above, it is clear that such interdependency models will inevitably have high dimensionality and combinatorial complexity. This rules out a simultaneous treatment of all the events using an individual choice approach. If an individual choice approach is to be applied in a tractable manner, the set of interdependent events needs to be segmented into several subsets, with simultaneity recognised within each subset, but a mere sequential progression occurring between subsets. In this paper, full event interdependencies are retained at the expense of modelling market segments of consumers rather than a sample of representative individuals. We couple the travel and consumption events in the only feasible way, by modelling the tours as discrete entities, in conjunction with the amount of each commodity consumed per stop on each such tour in terms of the continuous quantities of microeconomics. This is performed both under a budget/income constraint from microeconomics and a time budget constraint from time geography. The model considers both physical trips and tele-orders.

Proposed Road Pollution Alert System Based on Lagrangian Wall Model

Despite significant improvements in fuel and engine technology, road traffic remains a major source of air pollutants, such as oxides of nitrogen, CO, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. Many recent studies have demonstrated associations between traffic-related air pollution and the adverse effects of exposure to traffic-related air pollution in a wide variety of situations. This paper describes the components of a proposed road pollution modeling-and-alert system that can be deployed by local authorities on sections of roads that are under the continuous risk of exceeding thresholds of acceptable air quality. The system features the use of real-time traffic data from intelligent transportation systems and related sources; a power-based model for the calculation of emissions that takes into account the driving mode of the vehicle as well as characteristics of the road segment; a Lagrangian wall model (LWM) to simulate the dispersion of pollutants from different sources; and an alert-and-response system that will need further input from government authorities, industry, and the community. The ability to combine emissions estimates from a power-based motor vehicle emissions model with the LWM dispersion and chemical transformation capabilities significantly enhances the capacity to minimize population exposure and reduce health impacts of pollution from particular roads of interest. This paper discusses development of the LWM and summarizes outcomes of a verification study performed with the California Department of Transportation Highway 99 tracer dispersion data set. It also presents results of a case study performed to demonstrate capabilities of the LWM.

Activities, Accessibility And Mobility ForIndividuals And Households

Planning for accessibility is a complex task because myriad spatial and temporal ties mark individual mobility needs and patterns. This research uses activity spaces and travel time expenditure to indicate opportunities for participation and interaction, within specified transport and urban services environments. The analysis, conducted at individual and household levels, reveals significant differences across gender, age, employment, ethnic background and restricted mobility groups, as well as among households at various stages of their lifecycle. For the covering abstract see ITRD E129315.

ASSESSING THE TRANSPORT IMPACTS OF E-BUSINESS IN AUSTRALIA

E-business (B2B and B2C) is expected to dramatically change the way business is conducted. Assessment of the likely impact of e-business on the transport system, and hence on the natural and built environment, is thus needed. This paper reports some early findings from a study to consider e-business trends and to design a procedure for rating and ranking transport impacts of e-business for Australian conditions. The study is based on interviews with experts and the results of a review of current evidence. There is an emphasis on assessing likely environmental implications such as changes in levels of greenhouse gas emissions.