Pedestrian network repair with spatial optimization models and geocrowdsourced data

Pedestrian infrastructure is an essential part of the urban fabric. Typically, it is carefully planned and maintained by governments and local experts, who recognize the benefits to health, well-being, and even economics associated with a walkable environment. Pedestrian walkway characteristics, including running slope, cross slope, curb cuts, cross walks, sidewalk widths, and signalization are a part of the comprehensive design elements used by most municipalities. However, barriers or obstacles, including temporary obstructions, construction detours, and surface irregularities make this infrastructure difficult for individuals with a mobility impairment or vision impairment to use. Crowdsourcing can assist these individuals by providing information about transient and permanent navigation obstacles, through an accessibility mapping system. Accessibility mapping systems, several examples of which are discussed in this paper, provide routing functions to make navigation easier for individuals with a mobility impairment or vision impairment. A geocrowdsourced accessibility system can also identify deficiencies in a pedestrian network dynamically, and can provision routing and obstacle avoidance functions in real-time, with data about transient events provided by the public. This paper is based upon previous geocrowdsourced data quality studies, and presents a modeling methodology to identify high-value routing corridors in a dynamic geocrowdsourced accessibility system. The corridor measurement can help civic employees from city public works and transportation departments prioritize maintenance of a pedestrian infrastructure, including the rectification of obstacles identified through crowdsourcing. In this paper, we augment geocrowdsourcing data quality metrics with input from subject matter experts trained in orientation and mobility services, and discuss the accessibility elements that could directly influence the usability of the pedestrian infrastructure. We also present a cost optimization model to measure the value of a pedestrian network segment. Lastly, this paper analyzes how the value of a network segment in a geocrowdsourced accessibility system changes with network conditions and how this relates to prioritization of maintenance tasks through optimization criteria.     

Land use and urban travel in Kumasi,Ghana

Globally, transport literature indicates a strong effect of land use on urban travel as people living in low density suburban areas tend to travel more by car than people living in high density urban areas. This is because in dense areas, public transport is organised more efficiently and travellers tend to travel shorter distances. However, this assertion is frequently based on locations with efficient integration of transport within the land use planning framework. In Ghana and many African countries, it remains unknown whether the effect of land use on urban travel is strong as reported in developed countries and elsewhere. This research examines the effect of land use on urban travel in Ghana using Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana, as a case study. Simple questionnaire survey with urban residents, semi-structured interviews with agencies and secondary data analysis were used for this research. Results indicate negative effect of land use on urban travel as there has been increased congestion in all the major road arterials in the city resulting in difficulty in commuting using motorised transport. Findings further show a weak effect of land use on urban travel, as areas experiencing change of land use have poor locational accessibility. The paper recommends innovative ways of meeting the growing travel demand of residents in the city such as the development of a light rail and bus rapid transit systems to help ease congestion and improve public transportation.     

Exploring the structure of the U.S. intercity passenger air transportation network: a weighted complex network approach

The U.S. airline network is one of the most advanced transportation infrastructures in the world. It is a complex geospatial structure that sustains a variety of dynamics including commercial, public, and military operations and services. We study the U.S. domestic intercity passenger air transportation network using a weighted complex network methodology, in which vertices represent cities and edges represent intercity airline connections weighted by average daily passenger traffic, non-stop distance, and average one-way fares. We find that U.S. intercity passenger air transportation network is a small-world network accompanied by dissortative mixing patterns and rich-club phenomenon, implying that large degree cities (or hub cities) tend to form high traffic volume interconnections among each other and large degree cities tend to link to a large number of small degree cities. The interhub air connections tend to form interconnected triplets with high traffic volumes, long non-stop distances, and low average one-way fares. The structure of the U.S. airline network reflects the dynamic integration of pre-existing urban and national transportation infrastructure with the competitive business strategies of commercial airlines. In this paper we apply an emerging methodology to representing, analyzing, and modeling the complex interactions associated with the physical and human elements of the important U.S. national air transport and services infrastructure.     

Unbundling Stockholm: The networks, planning and social welfare nexus beyond the unitary city

This paper focuses on the extent to which recent infrastructure-oriented urban developments in Stockholm concord with various aspects of the ‘splintering urbanism’ thesis of Graham and Marvin. This contextualisation allows us to extend their work empirically and conceptually. In the first instance, we study a particular case of the decline of a unitary networked city (in an urban context largely absent from their book). In the second instance, we develop their notion of ‘unbundling’ to capture not just core changes in the organisation of infrastructure provision, but an overarching disjunction of the established nexus between networks, planning and social welfare in the city. This disjunction operates through interlinked transformations concerning, for example, privatisation and outsourcing in network services, separation of infrastructure planning from broader urban planning, contradictions between the environmental and social mandates of infrastructure, and a (prospective) curtailment of the redistributive, social role of essential network service provision. We conclude nonetheless that this ‘destructive’ moment of unbundling has not so far been pursued by more explicitly ‘creative’ urban fragmentation strategies, due largely to the vestiges of a socio-political consensus based around redistribution and equality. In this respect, the Stockholm case pleads for a conception of ‘splintering’ as a dynamic and multi-stage process which is not only always ongoing, unstable and incomplete, but also non-linear and open to resistance/regulation.     

Impact of city expansion on hydrological regime of Rispana Watershed,Dehradun, India

Rispana River flows through the heart of Dehradun, the capital city of Uttarakhand State, India. Uttarakhand had separated from Uttar Pradesh State in the year 2000; since then, Dehradun City has witnessed numerous changes. Both urban sprawl and densification were noticed, with around a 32% increase in population. The city had faced recurrent high runoff and urban flood situations in these last 2 decades. Therefore, the study was conducted to detect the change in land use/land cover (LULC), especially urbanization, through remote sensing data; and later to determine the impacts of such changes on the Rispana watershed hydrology. The LULC maps for the year 2003 and the 2017 were generated through supervised classification technique using the Landsat Series satellite datasets. The LULC change analysis depicted that mainly the urban settlement class increased with significant area among other classes from the year 2003–2017. It was noticed that majorly agriculture and fallow land (8.18 km², which is 13.52% of total watershed area) converted to urban, increasing the impervious area. Almost all the municipal wards, falling in the Rispana watershed, showed urbanization during the said period, with an increase of as high as 71%. The change in LULC or effect of urbanization on the hydrological response of the watershed was assessed using the most widely used Natural Resources Conservation Services Curve Number method. It was noticed that the area under moderated runoff potential (approx. 10.23 km²) steeply increased during the lean season, whereas, high runoff potential zones (5 km²) increased significantly under wet season. Therefore, it was concluded that an increase in impervious surface resulted in high runoff generation. Further, such LULC change along with climate might lead to high runoff within the watershed, which the present storm drainage network could not withstand. The situation generally led to urban floods and affected urban dwellers regularly. Therefore, it is critical to assess the hydrological impacts of LULC change for land use planning and water resource management. Furthermore, under the smart city project, the local government has various plans to improve present infrastructure; therefore, it becomes necessary to incorporate such observations in the policies.

     

Mobility centre-oriented urban regeneration: examining place value of railway stations

Urban regeneration involves the notion of reconstruction of places, where regeneration initiatives are undertaken to ameliorate the quality of physical and social spaces, accrue economic profitability of space, and finally encourage environmental sustainability. Railway stations all around the world have a very important role to play in contemporary urban regeneration strategies as places of both social and material interest. With the progress of the twentieth century several issues like rapidly growing population, seemingly relentless urbanisation, an alarming rate of vehicle emission, and consequent pollution emphasised railway stations as critical places with great potentials of infrastructure development for the optimised functioning of urban centres. Thus the huge value of railway stations and their adjacent land has been acknowledged since the last quarter of the previous century. This paper aims to analyse the place value of railway stations and their immediate neighbourhoods within the urban fabric of a city using a relevant theoretical concept i.e. the ‘Node-Place Model’. Simultaneously it also draws attention to the notion of (re)development of functional spaces in and around the railway stations as a dimension of contemporary urban regeneration strategies, with the help of some global examples. This paper thereby reveals that in the urban centres throughout the entire world the railway stations are progressively attaining the focal position within integrated transport and land use planning strategies, either under the larger concept of 'Transit-Oriented Development' (TOD) or more simply, with the label of (re)development programme. This paper will significantly contribute to the ability of spatial policymakers to direct the future of urban growth towards public transit stations so as to achieve sustainable urban development.

     

Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms

Los Angeles is often described as the epitome of urban fragmentation, a notion which in this context is frequently connected to, or even conflated with urban sprawl. At the same time, the city features integrated water and power networks which have been under public ownership for over 70 years. We thus have an apparent paradox in the context of the debate on ‘splintering urbanism’, between socio-spatial fragmentation and the integration of networks. In discussing the idea that deregulation of infrastructural networks exacerbates urban fragmentation, the authors use the case of Los Angeles in order to highlight the central role of private interests in management decisions concerning infrastructure networks. The authors carry out their analysis in an historical perspective, revealing that network integration and universal access can often serve private interests more than the public good. Urban fragmentation in Los Angeles, they conclude, is the result of a complex process of instrumentalisation of network development and management.     

利用GIS技术有效地管理城市地下管线

随着城市现代化建设步伐不断加快，城区内的各类基础设施也在不断地扩建和改造，为避免在建设过程中可能发生的意外，以及最大限度地降低各种因自然灾害造成的城市基础设施损害。采用现代化的信息管理手段。利用GIS技术管理城市地下管线，正受到城市规划和建设部门的普遍重视。介绍了舍肥测绘设计研究院利用CIS技术建立舍肥市地下管线信息系统中的一些技术方法和经验。     

(Un)bundling Bangalore: Infrastructure bundling ‘best practices’ and assembling novel scapes

This paper focuses on the socio-material, political and spatial implications of urban infrastructure bundling practices. Our work examines how network bundling best practices piloted in the Indian city of Bangalore (Bengaluru) have been deployed as a policy model for urban road re-engineering. Drawing on work in actor-network theory (ANT)-inspired assemblage urbanism and policy mobilities, we examine the assembling of Bengaluru's Vittal Mallya (VM) Road in conjunction with Tender-SURE (Tender Specifications for Urban Road Execution) as showcase projects for bundled network infrastructures. Our paper introduces an ‘infrastructurescape’ typology – boundaries, intersections, cul-de-sacs and peopling – as an analytic for examining the socio-material and spatio-political implications of bundling. Our findings discuss the rise of powerful local infrastructure coalitions of private and civic interests in Bengaluru. Besides the low accountability of these coalitions, we identify the potential problematic effects of infrastructure bundling including: spatial exclusions and fragmentation; the valorization of commercial space and automobility; and the limited participation of wider publics in shaping urban infrastructural futures. Bundling urban networks and setting local urban infrastructural priorities, we suggest, represent politically-charged processes that reconfigure specific city streets and scapes. Infrastructure bundling practices have important implications for the city-at-large and the city-region of the future in India and beyond.     

轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的探讨

公众参与是环境影响评价的重要内容,城市轨道交通规划环评不同于一般的建设项目,其线路一般选择在城市中心繁华地区、城市交通主干道,环境影响的范围较广,城市轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的广度和深度均应比建设项目环境影响评价公众参与的要求高,本文对轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的必要性进行了阐述,其中包括公众参与是轨道交通规划环境影响评价过程的重要组成部分和现阶段社会主义民主的充分体现;是提高公众环境意识、化解社会矛盾和提高轨道交通规划环境影响评价有效性的重要途径。     

Spatial exposure aspects contributing to vulnerability and resilience assessments of urban critical infrastructure in a flood and blackout context

Blackouts aggravate the situation during an extreme river-flood event by affecting residents and visitors of an urban area. But also rescue services, fire brigades and basic urban infrastructure such as hospitals have to operate under suboptimal conditions. This paper aims to demonstrate how affected people, critical infrastructure, such as electricity, roads and civil protection infrastructure are intertwined during a flood event, and how this can be analysed in a spatially explicit way. The city of Cologne (Germany) is used as a case study since it is river-flood prone and thousands of people had been affected in the floods in 1993 and 1995. Components of vulnerability and resilience assessments are selected with a focus of analysing exposure to floods, and five steps of analysis are demonstrated using a geographic information system. Data derived by airborne and spaceborne earth observation to capture flood extent and demographic data are combined with place-based information about location and distance of objects. The results illustrate that even fire brigade stations, hospitals and refugee shelters are within the flood scenario area. Methodologically, the paper shows how criticality of infrastructure can be analysed and how static vulnerability assessments can be improved by adding routing calculations. Fire brigades can use this information to improve planning on how to access hospitals and shelters under flooded road conditions.

     

Integration prospects of the Hungarian transport network into the more advanced European networks

In spite of the advantageous transport-geographic situation of Hungary, the four decades of the so called planned socialist economy, neglecting the transportational infrastructure, made the country lag behind the rest of Europe. The two main points in the current development of the Hungarian transportation system are the establishment of proper links with the more developed western European transportational network, and starting a substantial technical development in all respects of domestic transportation in order to approach the standards of the more developed countries. The paper reviews the main characteristics of the project of the Hungarian development of transport by road and rail.     

Deaggregation of multi-hazard damages,losses, risks,and connectivity: an application to the joint seismic-tsunami hazard at Seaside,Oregon

This paper presents a methodology to deaggregate the results of a multi-hazard damage analysis by extending the traditional multi-hazard damage analysis to consider both population characteristics and independent hazards. The methodology is applied to the joint seismic-tsunami hazard at Seaside, Oregon, considering four infrastructure systems: (1) buildings, (2) transportation network, (3) electric power network and (4) water supply network. Damages to all infrastructure systems are evaluated, and the networked infrastructures are used to inform parcel connectivity to critical facilities. US Census data and a probabilistic housing unit allocation method are implemented to assign detailed household demographic characteristics at the parcel level. Six dimensions of deaggregation are introduced: (1) spatial, (2) hazard type, (3) hazard intensity, (4) infrastructure system, (5) infrastructure component, and (6) housing unit characteristics. The damages, economic losses and risks, and connectivity to critical facilities are deaggregated across these six dimensions. The results show that deaggregated economic loss and risk plots can allow community resilience planners the ability to isolate high-risk events, as well as provide insights into the underlying driving forces. Geospatial representation of the results allows for the identification of both vulnerable buildings and areas within a community and is highlighted by the spatial pattern of parcel disconnection from critical facilities. The incorporation of population characteristics provides an understanding of how hazards disproportionately impact population subgroups and can aide in equitable resilience planning.

     

景观空间结构分析在城市水系规划中的应用

作为城市重要的生态基础设施,河流与水系的功能正常发挥与否取决于其结构特征以及格局的完善程度,而水系规划对城市河流结构与水系格局的改善具有关键作用。运用景观生态学关于廊道与网络的分析方法,将河流与水系看作水景观元素中的廊道和网络,通过计算和比较水系规划前后河流廊道与水系网络的一些指标,反映河流结构和水系网络特征的变化情况,以此评价水系规划的科学性和合理性,揭示水系规划在改善城市河流廊道的空间结构和提高水系网络的连接度方面的景观生态学本质;并以太仓市水系规划为例进行了研究。结果表明,规划后全市水系网络的连结数与最大可能连结数之比(γ)和网络中实际环路数与最大可能出现环路的比值(α)指数值分别比现状提高了30%和119%,河流廊道的空间结构得到了明显改善。对四个水利片区的研究发现各区的γ和α值具有较为明显的空间差异,γ和α值表现为现状指标值越低、城市化影响越强烈的地区,规划后其值提高的幅度越大。     

浅谈枣庄市市中区基准地价成果分析及应用

城区土地级别和基准地价是城市土地利用情况的反映,它客观地揭示了城区内不同区段土地使用价值及变化规律,是政府宏观调控土地市场、科学合理配置土地资产的有效手段。随着枣庄市市中区经济建设发展和城市规划的实施,城市基础设施不断完善,带动了城市房地产市场健康发展和土地使用权价格稳定上涨。该文通过对枣庄市市中区新一轮基准地价更新成果的详细分析,探讨了基准地价更新成果在城市经济发展中的应用。     

Milan: The city of constant renewal

Traditional models of urban development are no longer adequate to describe current metropolitan transformations. These are now at the centre of a debate concerning management and administration. In Italy, delays in resolving problems of urban and metropolitan government, despite the legal framework provided by Law 142/90, have weighed heavily on the larger urban areas of the country: Rome, Naples, Milan, which have not been able to tackle the issue of metropolitan government. Recent legislation, while not providing a pre-defined institutional solution, allows separate administrative districts to collectively establish metropolitan institutions of `variable geometry'. The Milan urban area is not one city, but a system of mutually-dependent cities, linked to each other and the rest of the world by a transport network still requiring much investment. The vitality of its economic structure (especially its small firms) is held back by seriously inadequate infrastructure and low external economic efficiency. The provincial capital may boast `historic centrality' but the most interesting potential for development is to be found on the periphery and in the administrative districts immediately surrounding it, in the recovery of derelict industrial areas and dormitory towns established in the 1950s and 1960s, especially to the north. Recovery of derelict areas, green areas, and better transport links within the urban area and with the outside world are the key elements in the reorganization of `Greater Milan'. In this situation of rapid transformation the most appropriate political strategies involve negotiated planning. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Socio-spatial segregation and urban form: Belém at the end of the 1990s

In the second half of the 1990s, socio-spatial segregation increased in Brazilian cities, accentuating inequity among social groups. Using a combination of space syntax techniques and statistical analysis, this paper explores locational differences in central and peripheral portions of Belém. The analysis shows how socio-spatial segregation was made more pronounced by relationships between urban form, infrastructure provision and locational values. Social groups' opportunities in the city are suggested to be limited by features of its urban form, associated with infrastructure provision, especially for groups unable to take advantage of intra-urban accessibility. The paper also discusses the findings of the study in relation to the Brazilian urban context at the end of the 1990s.     

Study on Jinan urban construction planning based on the protection of karst landscape

Study on urban construction planning based on karst landscape protection contributes to sustainable development of urban construction in karst area. Jinan is a city famous for karst spring water. Karst landscape plays a decisive role in urban construction. Through hydrogeological analysis, the distribution characteristics of karst mountain, cave, gully and flat dam in Jinan are analyzed. It is revealed that various karst landforms are involved in the spring circulation process to varying degrees. Some karst landforms have been destroyed in the process of urban construction and the karst landscape has been overexploited resulting in the direct or indirect weakening of spring water recharge and infiltration capacity and the decrease of spring water flow. Through the study of the principle of organic combination of karst landscape and urban construction planning, on the basis of protecting the ecological environment of the south, paying attention to the overall protection of the karst geomorphology system and the principle of accessibility of the karst landscape, the development countermeasures guided by urban planning are put forward based on karst landforms protection. On the basis of fully considering the special karst landform conditions in Jinan, the countermeasures are that the ecological control red line of urban construction planning should be set up based on karst mountains and valleys in southern of Jinan City. It is suggested that the bare carbonate rock continuous mountain foot line in the direct recharge area should be taken as the south control red line of urban development and included in the overall planning. The urban landscape is mainly displayed in the main axis based on karst mountains and springs, constructing East-West Axis-characteristic Landscape Belt along the Wufeng Mountain-Langmao Mountain-Hero Mountain-Qianfo Mountain-Long cave-Panlong cave-Jinping Mountain line and North-South Axis Landscape Belt along the Baotu Spring- Qianfo Mountain line, Baiquan-Panlong cave line, Baimai spring-Dajian Mountain line. Based on the karst river valleys and the river system, the urban spatial pattern is constructed, forming ecological corridor, restoring infiltration function of river. The form of urban construction should be shaped based on karst landform and the river system. The main form is semi-star like radiation type and the combination of central intensive type and zonal type. Based on the whole protection of karst geomorphology system and the scientific molding of karst landscape, the ecological landscape city with the symbiosis of spring and urban can be built.     

Contextualizing public art production in China: The urban sculpture planning system in Shanghai

This research examines urban sculpture production to understand how a public art (called “urban sculpture” in China) scene is produced in the country, using Shanghai as a case study. Theories of Chinese urban planning are innovatively applied. The findings generate theoretical implications for “contextualizing” public art production in geographical studies. All the chief officials in charge of urban sculpture planning in Shanghai were interviewed, and documentary analyses were conducted. The article argues that urban sculptures are conceived of as both symbolic capitals and didactic tools in the cultural policies of Shanghai. Urban sculpture planning plays an important role in coordinating and manipulating development of symbolic resources to advance urban entrepreneurialism within the ideological framework of the Communist Party’s leadership. The main features of the urban sculpture planning system of China are twofold: (1) The two-tier planning structure combines a master plan at the municipal level and detailed plans for site analysis and design guidance at the district level, all collaboratively working to create an attractive city image for urban entrepreneurialism. (2) An authoritarian style of planning system controls the contents and expression of urban sculpture within the ideological framework of urban sculpture planning.