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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Modeling street connectivity, pedestrian movement and land-use according to standard GIS street network representations: A Comparative Study

by Ayse Ozbil, John Peponis, and Brian Stone

Two 1 mile x 1 mile areas in Atlanta and two 1 mile x 1 mile areas in Istanbul are compared to establish correlations between the distribution of pedestrian movement and street configuration. In each city, one area is chosen in the urban center and the other in one of the residential neighborhoods. The aim is to identify both underlying regularities that link street connectivity to pedestrian flows and differences regarding the volumes of pedestrian presence that can be traced to the influence of different modes of space appropriation. Based on pilot studies we expect to show that the volumes of pedestrian traffic per road segment can be post-dicted based on an analysis of standard GIS-based representations of street networks to implement two new measures of connectivity: reach, which measures the length of street network accessible within a given walking radius, and directional distance, which measures the number of direction turns needed to get to all accessible parts of the network. The work has several consequences. First, it complements existing work on the influence of density and design upon pedestrian movement by bringing into sharper focus a variable that clearly partakes of both design and density, namely the connectivity of the street network and its configuration. Second, it helps clarify that while land-use may play an important role in determining the average volume of movement in a given area, spatial layout plays a more important role in determining the distribution of movement within an area. This has consequences for at least some kinds of local urban economy as the comparative analysis will show: in Istanbul retail still relies on the “passing trade” more than it does in Atlanta because of the finer grain not only of the street network but also the size of businesses.


more about Space Syntax:

TRADITIONAL SHOPPING: A Syntactic Comparison of Commercial Spaces in Iran and Turkey

Can Betweenness Centrality Explain Traffic Flow?

Correlating Densities of Centrality and Activities in Cities: the Cases of Bologna (IT) and Barcelona (ES)

Correlating street centrality with commerce and service location in cities

Street Centrality and Densities of Retails and Services in Bologna, Italy

Evaluated Model of Pedestrian Movement Based on Space Syntax, Performance Measures and Artificial Neural Nets

THE STREETS OF INNOVATION: an exploratory analysis of knowledge transfer in the public realm

An integration of space syntax into GIS for modelling urban spaces

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Dynamic GPS-position correction for mobile pedestrian navigation and orientation

by Jason Daniel Martina, Jens Kröscheb,  and Susanne Boll

Location has become one of the most relevant context parameters for mobile applications. Technology for the positiong such as Global Positioning System (GPS) has been widely adopted for locating the mobile user. However, for mobile applications that use an off the shelf GPS-receiver such as a PCMCIA card attached to a PDA, the correctness of the positioning is yet unsatisfying. Especially pedestrians, walking in urban areas, may experience strong deviations of the detected position from their actual position. In this paper, we present our approach to provide a software-based solution for a more correct position to a mobile pedestrian by still relying on consumer-grade GPS receivers. The results are small-sized, however, promising.


more about pedestrianization:

Bridges to Utopia? A Sustainable Urban District in Freiburg, Germany

The new district of Freiburg-Rieselfeld: a case study of successful, sustainable urban development

A planned carfree neighborhood: Rieselfeld in Freiburg, Germany

Pedestrian (and stroller) priority in Vancouver

SMART GROWTH, SMART CHOICES SERIES: MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT

Norwegian poetics – 2nd life of the industrial city

GPS in pedestrian and spatial behaviour surveys

GPS in pedestrian and spatial behaviour surveys

by Thomas S. Nielsen and Henrik Harder Hovgesen

The planning of the environment for pedestrian can be improved by using the newest gps tools for monitoring changes in human activity patters in time and space.
Using a personal GPS-device the locations and movements of respondents can be followed through a longer period of time. It will be possible to analyse how the use of urban spaces are embedded in a wider context of activity patterns (work, school etc.). The general patterning of everyday itineraries, including route choice and time spent at different locations “on the way” can also be analysed. If the personal GPS-device is combined with an electronic questionnaire, FX. in the shape of a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or cell phone, a whole new array of survey-possibilities comes into being. Respondents can be asked to register their activities, evaluate – or in other ways describe the attractiveness of places – based on their actual position in the urban area. Thus a new form of integration between research into activity patterns and urban places will be possible.
The paper presents the possibilities in spatial behaviour and pedestrian-surveys with GPS and electronic questionnaires. Demonstrative mapping of test data from passive GPS-registration of Copenhagen respondents is presented. The different survey-possibilities given a combination of GPS and PDA-based electronic questionnaire are presented – together with its possible applications in the context of pedestrian surveys.
more about pedestrian travels:

Perceptions of Accessibility to Neighborhood Retail and Other Public Services

Walking and cycling for sustainable mobility in Singapore

Residents’ perceptions of walkability attributes in objectively different neighbourhoods: a pilot study

Validating walkability indices: How do different households respond to the walkability of their neighbourhood?

Environmental Correlates of Walking and Cycling: Findings From the Transportation, Urban Design, and Planning Literatures

Friday, December 7, 2012

Lecture on sampling methods by Prof. Murtaza Haider

Defining the sample size is of great importance in the precision of the surveys. This issue is used in transportation and urban planning observations. Pof. Murtaza Haider from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada explains about this topic in a lecture in the following video.


more about quantitative observations in urban transportation planning:

The Causal Influence of Neighborhood Design on Physical Activity Within the Neighborhood: Evidence from Northern CaHfornia

Urban Travel Route and Activity Choice Survey (UTRACS): An Internet-Based Prompted Recall Activity Travel Survey using GPS Data

Thursday, December 6, 2012

The impact of modernization on traditional Iranian cities the case of Kerman

by AZADEH ARJOMAND KERMANI and ERIC LUITEN

Historical urban centers in Iran are significant because of their population density and location, but also because of the major functions of the central buildings that are very often historical monuments and valuable urban ensembles. Historical urban quarters are special places not only because of the cultural heritage they house, but also because of their urban pattern.
Widening streets to facilitate automobile access to the historical fabric of the city has had a deleterious impact on the network of paths through the city, and has caused the spatial coherence of the ancient fabric to fracture.
The study of urban history reveals that a variety of factors have influenced the development of ancient cities, with one of the most important factors being the economy. In fact, the very survival of a city was highly dependent on its economic power. As the most significant pedestrian network and backbone of a city, the bazaar plays an important role in the development and livability of traditional Iranian cities. Located along the Silk Road, Kerman, which was once a trading metropolis of international renown, has one of the most historical bazaars in Iran. Kerman was chosen for its location and the role its bazaar once played in the formation of the city itself. This paper analyzes two examples of where modern construction and the old urban bazaar intersect, and discusses how the old urban texture is being lost.


more about Iran:

The Mechanism of Transformation of Shiraz City from Past to Present

Earthquake Management in Iran A compilation of literature on earthquake Management

Tehran and the challenges of a metropolis in the millennium

A GIS-based Traffic Control Strategy Planning at Urban Intersections

THE IDENTITY OF OPEN SPACE: ADAPTING FROM THE MODEL OF TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER

A new approach to the Iranian urban planning, using neo-traditional development

URBAN SPRAWL IN IRANIAN CITIES AND ITS DIFFERENCES WITH THE WESTERN SPRAWL

THE IDENTITY OF OPEN SPACE: ADAPTING FROM THE MODEL OF TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER

by V. Ahmadi, A.I. Che-Ani, H.Farkisch, and M.Surat

The City form consists of some different elements, which have been joined in the functional and spatial form. If these elements have an appropriate spatial organization the strong coherence is created among them. In the traditional urban spaces, most of the times, this spatial regularity among city elements is the result of thoughtful developed urban patterns. Many non-local agents influence on the form of new cities while the forming of traditional urban spaces depends on the morphology of the site, the historical background and the culture of local people. In this way, we were looking for some of the important researches by focus the open spaces and exactly neighborhood centers in Iran. We also choose the analysis literature review for our methodology. All our attention was on two case studies in Iran (Tehran and Shiraz). In this paper, we tried to find ways to evaluate the value of neighborhood centers in the traditional urban for fulfillment to sustainable development urbanism. Urban planners and designers should find out the secret of the traditional cities' sustainability and the factors which make the responsive environment, and think that what the reasons prevent using them in contemporary cities. And then they should find a way to update those factors based on today demands, and design new patterns according to old one.


North of Tehran

more about Iranian urbanism and urban planning:

TRADITIONAL SHOPPING: A Syntactic Comparison of Commercial Spaces in Iran and Turkey

A new approach to the Iranian urban planning, using neo-traditional development

URBAN SPRAWL IN IRANIAN CITIES AND ITS DIFFERENCES WITH THE WESTERN SPRAWL

Changes in population settlement pattern in urban system of Tehran province (1966 to 2006)

Evaluating integration between public transportation and pedestrian-oriented urban spaces in two main metro stations of Tehran

THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL IDENTITY OF CITY IN URBAN SUSTAINABILITY (THE CASE STUDY: YAZD,IRAN)

Good Governance, (as promoting in decision-making process) and its influence on urban strategic plans

Abadan: planning and architecture under the Anglo- Iranian Oil Company

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Call for papers: JDR’s Special Issue on Great East Japan Earthquake

The Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) publishes special issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake. To make the most of this critical experience of the earthquake disaster as a yardstick for disaster prevention in the future, we call for research papers, survey reports, analyses and proposals related to the Great East Japan Earthquake from diverse perspectives. The special issues will be published annually from August 2012 (published) for five years. We look forward to your submission.

Objective
The Great East Japan Earthquake has caused an unprecedented scale of damage and had widespread effects. There is a need to study the actual condition of damages and countermeasures against disasters from a wide-ranging perspective and on a long-time basis. JDR will annually publish special issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake beginning in 2012, for five years, for the purpose of informing, recording and utilizing lessons learned from the earthquake. Page charges are in principle free. We call for papers through our website or other media, and expect contributions from a broad array of fields.

Study Area
The study area is not specified. We call for research papers, survey reports, analyses and proposals based on scientific or socio-scientific methods, on a wide range of topics related to the Great East Japan Earthquake. Examples of the study areas are as follows.
-Earthquake 
-Seismic motion 
-Tsunami
-Damage by earthquake 
-Damage by tsunami 
- Fire caused by tsunami
-Nuclear disaster 
-Countermeasures against radiation
- Countermeasures for disaster mitigation 
-Recovery and Reconstruction
-Risk management 
-Sanitation 
-Medical care
-Harmful rumors 
-Volunteer 
-Transportation problem
-Others

Deadline for the manuscript: April 1, 2013
Deadline for the final manuscript: May 15, 2013
Date of publication: September 1, 2013


more about disaster management:

Asian cities at highest risk to climate change, study says

Urbanization and Natural Disasters in the Mediterranean Population Growth and Climate Change in the 21st Century Case Studies on Izmit, Algiers and Alexandria

EVACUATION PLANNING IN EARTHQUAKE DISASTERS, USING RS & GIS

GIS based Earthquake Risk-Vulnerability Analysis and Post-quake Relief Planning

Hazard Mapping and Vulnerability Assessment

Augusta Practices Resilience in Fighting Floods