Breaking away from trend-based analysis for regional modelling and planning

Abstract

Traditional approaches to regional modelling and planning rely on trend-based analyses whereby demographic projections are used to initialise and bootstrap future demand for housing, transport and jobs. Besides, most of these approaches cannot adequately take into account the intricate interactions between land use, transport and regional economic drivers. The model developed for the Illawarra region (south of Sydney, Australia), called Vision Illawarra, draws upon and expands the Metronamica© platform developed by RIKS (Netherlands) into a 4-component dynamic model. A regional economic model (CGE) drives the number of jobs available and informs a demographic model (Synthetic Population) on employment levels and migration needs. The land use model (cellular automaton) spatially allocates the residential, commercial and industrial areas based on demand set by the economic and population models and existing/future zoning plans. A 4-step transport model is informed by the land use model and provides a dynamic feedback on land accessibility. Vision Illawarra has been calibrated for the period 2006 - 2011 and the simulation of scenarios uses the time window between 2011 and 2031. In this paper, we present the development and calibration of the model, as well as the exploration of three plausible scenarios with the model.