A cellular automation model for urban land use simulation A cellular automation model for urban land use simulation

Conventionally, land use and transport interaction is studied through computer simulation using large-scale integrated land use and transport models. Though comprehensive, most of these models fail to recognise that urban growth is not entirely a global but also a local process. The over-complex and data hungry nature of these models further render them inefficient as tools for strategic planning. This study attempts to find an alternative modelling approach by developing a land use simulation model using cellular automation (CA). The essence of CA is that simple local actions lead to complex global behavioural patterns. The whole system behaves as a self-organising, self-evolving entity based on some transition rules. The model rests on a conceptual framework in which urban land use and transport interaction is characterised as an outcome of aggregate supply and demand. The framework condenses the myriad factors affecting land use and transport into a few attributes which include accessibility, residential density, property value, and passenger trip volume. Recognising that urban growth is both a local and a global process, the CA model developed in this study identifies two effects on land use changes: the attribute effect and the gravity effect. The former is considered as a local driving force for change constituted by changing accessibility and other attributes resulting from the interaction of land use and transport at the neighbourhood level. The latter is a universal resistance to change due to inertia and agglomeration of compatible land uses in the vicinity. The combination of these two forces determines local land use changes. Taken together, these local changes constitute the global land use pattern. Practical use of the CA model will be demonstrated using metropolitan Melbourne as a study area. Contact author Kwok Hung Lau Lecturer, School of Marketing, RMIT University, Level 14, 239 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 Tel: (03) 9925 5910 [email protected]