Unified computable urban economic model

Abstract

The computable urban economic (CUE) model is a tool for analyzingreal urban economies and evaluating urban polices in practice. The CUE model canoutput a set of variables which describe a real urban economy: a distribution of locatorsor activities including households and firms, a distribution of land use includingresidential, commercial, manufacturing, business, agricultural and other types and adistribution of land price/rent and building price/rent. The CUE model, working withtransport models consistent with microeconomic theory, can also output a distributionof passenger trips aggregated by OD, mode and path, and a distribution of freight cargoas well. Urban models that belong to the CUE model family have been developed andapplied since the late 1980s. This paper first presents a general form of the CUE model,describing its mathematical forms and theoretical features. Then, the paper introducesseveral models in the CUE model family developed in Japan and shows that a CUE model constructed on the basis of the general form comprises the existing models. The paper compares the models with each other from the viewpoints of experiences of application, and mathematical function form, and provides clear insight into therelationship between the models. © 2012 The Author(s).