IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/transr/v31y2011i2p161-177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Macro to Micro—How Much Micro is too Much?

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Wegener

Abstract

This paper discusses the usefulness of the trend towards microsimulation in urban transport and land‐use modelling for the planning practice. It starts with a history of urban transport and land‐use models and observes a trend towards increasing conceptual, spatial and temporal resolution stimulated by improved data availability, higher computer speed and better theories about mobility and location of individual behaviour. While recognizing these advances, the paper calls attention to the problems of disaggregate models in terms of data requirements, computing time and stochastic variation and shows that in the light of new challenges cities are facing environmental problems, such as energy scarcity and climate change, not further refinement but more focus on basic needs and constraints is needed to make the models useful for the planning practice. As a possible solution to the macro–micro debate, it calls for a theory of multi‐level models according to which for each planning task there is an appropriate level of conceptual, spatial and temporal resolution. The paper closes with an example of a multi‐level land use, transport and environment model ranging from the European to the grid cell level.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Wegener, 2011. "From Macro to Micro—How Much Micro is too Much?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 161-177.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:transr:v:31:y:2011:i:2:p:161-177
    DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2010.532883
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01441647.2010.532883
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01441647.2010.532883?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vanoutrive, Thomas & Van De Vijver, Elien & Van Malderen, Laurent & Jourquin, Bart & Thomas, Isabelle & Verhetsel, Ann & Witlox, Frank, 2012. "What determines carpooling to workplaces in Belgium: location, organisation, or promotion?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 77-86.
    2. Zimu Jia & Long Chen & Jingjia Chen & Guowei Lyu & Ding Zhou & Ying Long, 2020. "Urban modeling for streets using vector cellular automata: Framework and its application in Beijing," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(8), pages 1418-1439, October.
    3. Scarinci, Riccardo & Zanarini, Alessandro & Bierlaire, Michel, 2019. "Electrification of urban mobility: The case of catenary-free buses," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 39-48.
    4. Frederik Priem & Philip Stessens & Frank Canters, 2020. "Microsimulation of Residential Activity for Alternative Urban Development Scenarios: A Case Study on Brussels and Flemish Brabant," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-28, March.
    5. McLeod, Sam & Schapper, Jake H.M. & Curtis, Carey & Graham, Giles, 2019. "Conceptualizing freight generation for transport and land use planning: A review and synthesis of the literature," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 24-34.
    6. Wegener, Michael, 2013. "The future of mobility in cities: Challenges for urban modelling," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 275-282.
    7. Jiri Horak & Jan Tesla & David Fojtik & Vit Vozenilek, 2019. "Modelling Public Transport Accessibility with Monte Carlo Stochastic Simulations: A Case Study of Ostrava," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-25, December.
    8. Marko Kryvobokov, 2015. "A two-level regional approach to residential location choice model," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 181-196, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:transr:v:31:y:2011:i:2:p:161-177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/TTRV20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.