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

Abstract

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.