Land Use and Built Environment

BTS (Version 1 .1) - Bottleneck Traffic Simulator User’s Manual

Lin, Wei Hua
Hall, Randolph W.
1991

BTS can be used to evaluate a variety of changes in highway design to improve bottlenecks, such as: (1) addition of highway lanes, (2) addition of automated or HOV lanes, or (3) incident management strategies to reduce the frequency, duration and magnitude of incidents. BTS can also be used to project future highway conditions as baselevel traffic grows or driver behavior changes.The new version of BTS was enhanced to include incident dependencies, variable weather conditions, reneging, and randomly varying traffic volumes. As of yet, BTS is not capable of analyzing highway performance on...

A Comparative Systems-Level Analysis: Automated Freeways, Hov Lanes, Transit Expansion, Pricing Policies and Land Use Intensification

Johnston, Robert
1997

The focus of this project was to examine the potential travel, emissions, and consumer benefits of advanced freeway automation and travel demand management measures. The Sacramento Regional Travel Demand model (SACMET 95) was used to simulate the travel effects of travel demand management measures in the Sacramento region for a twenty year time horizon. The scenarios examined included various combinations of automated freeways, new High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, transit, land use intensification, and pricing policies.

Easy-to-Compute Index for Identifying Built Environments that Support Walking

Schneider, RJ
Rodriguez, DA
Young, HM
2006

The variety and spatial co-variation of built environment attributes associated with non-automobile travel have resulted in the estimation of composite scores or indices summarizing these attributes. This paper builds on prior practical and research applications of these environmental scores or indices by proposing and testing a built environment index (BEI) calculated at the traffic analysis zone and that relies predominantly on widely available data. By computing the BEI using three different analytical methods used in prior research (principal components analysis, cluster analysis...

A Method for Estimating Neighborhood Characterization in Studies of the Association with Availability of Sit-Down Restaurants and Supermarkets

Peng, K
Rodriguez, D
Hirsch, JA
Gordon-Larsen, P
Rodriguez, D
2021

Although neighborhood-level access to food differs by sociodemographic factors, almost all research on neighborhoods and food access has used a single construct of neighborhood context, such as income or race. Neighborhoods possess many interrelated built environment and sociodemographic characteristics, a condition that obscures relationships between neighborhood factors and food access. The objective of this study is to examine the association between neighborhood characterization and neighborhood food availability while accounting for the effects of many interrelated aspects of...

Potential Drivers of Urban Green Space Availability in Latin American Cities

Bakhtsiyarava, M
Moran, M
Ju, Y
Zhou, Y
Rodriguez, DA
Dronova, I
de Pina, M
de Matos, V
Skaba, D
2024

Urban green spaces play a critical role in regulating air temperature, reducing air pollution and enhancing people’s well being. Yet, existing data and research on potential drivers of urban green space availability in Latin America are limited. Here, focusing on 371 large cities in 11 countries in Latin America, we described the total and per capita variability of urban green space, its spatial configuration and green urban parks across the categories of cities’ natural, built and socioeconomic environments. We tested the relative importance of geographic (climate) versus city-level...

Urban Development Around Bus Rapid Transit Stops in Seven Cities in Latin-America

Rodriguez, DA
Vergel-Tovar, C
2017

Although bus rapid transit (BRT) has become a popular transportation innovation worldwide, little is known about the built environment around the stops of these systems. A typology of urban development around 81 BRT stops in 7 cities in Latin America was developed and their daily BRT ridership examined. Primary and secondary data collected around the stops were the basis for factor and cluster analyses. Ten stop types were identified, with some types including attributes consistent with expectations of transit-oriented development areas. Other stops captured conditions prevalent in...

Improved Power Grid Stability and Efficiency with a Building-Energy Cyber-Physical System

Piette, Mary Ann
Sohn, Michael
Bayen, Alexandre M.
2009

This position article outlines some challenges of demand response in the context of the power grid and its interaction with buildings. We describe significant issues in energy-efficient operation of buildings, in particular questions such as system reliability, risk management and environmental impact. We also outline a strategy for the development of new technologies for a cyber-physical infrastructure system that integrates management of smart buildings with management of the power grid. Specific emphasis is given to the interaction of physical and computational processes through sensing,...

Defining Mixed-Use: Which Land Uses Promote Walking?

McConville, ME
Rodriguez, DA
Cho, G
Fleischhacker, S
Clifton, KJ
2010

Though researchers have explored the general impacts of mixed use development on physical activity, few have examined which specific land uses should be mixed. This study addresses this gap by examining the influence of the presence, intensity and diversity of land uses on utilitarian walking. Built environment data was related to utilitarian walking for individuals (n=251) in Montgomery County, Maryland. For a variety of land uses including banks, bus stops, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, libraries, rail stations, offices, parks, recreation centers, non-fast food restaurants...

How Neighborhood Design and Location Affect Three Types of Walking: Results from the Washington, DC Area

Cho, GH
Rodriguez, DA
2012

Understanding how the built environment on a neighborhood scale is associated with individuals' walking has been a common research objective in transportation and urban planning. In contrast to existing literature, this study is based on the assumption that a neighborhood's location defined at regional scale may be associated with walking and that this association may be separately identifiable from the influence of the neighborhood built environment on behaviors. The findings indicated that walking for commuting purposes was more strongly associated with neighborhood location than...

Seamless Travel: Measuring Bicycle and Pedestrian Activity in San Diego County and its Relationship to Land Use, Transportation, Safety, and Facility Type

Jones, Michael G.
Ryan, Sherry
Donlon, Jennifer
Ledbetter, Lauren
Ragland, David R.
Arnold, Lindsay
2010

This paper provides the data collection and research results for the Seamless Travel project. The Seamless Travel Project is a research project funded by Caltrans and managed by the University of California Traffic Safety Center, with David Ragland, PhD., as the Principal Investigator and Michael Jones as the Project Manager. The project is funded by Caltrans Division of Innovation and Research and is being conducted by the Traffic Safety Center of University of California Berkeley and Alta Planning + Design.Measuring bicycle and pedestrian activity is a key element to achieving the goals...