Exploring the combined effect of factors influencing commuting patterns and CO2 emissions in Aberdeen using an agent-based model

Abstract

This paper develops an agent-based model of the daily commute in Aberdeen City and the surrounding area in Scotland, UK. We study the impact of flexitime work arrangements, urban concentration, a new bypass, and cycle lanes on commute time length, reliability and CO2 emissions, and analyse the diverse conflation of these factors and the different connections of them in order to detect their cumulative effects. Our results suggest that flexitime will reduce CO2 emissions from traffic. It also reduces mean commute time and makes commute time more reliable. We find that although higher urban concentration will make travel time less reliable, it will reduce CO2 emissions from commuting and cut commute time length. There might also be a trade-off between travel time length and reliability regarding urban concentration. We show that the new bypass will only reduce mean commute time by a small amount, while slightly increasing total CO2 emissions. Finally, we find that cyclists sharing roads with cars do not necessarily slow down the traffic on the whole. We conclude that infrastructural, social and urban issues should never be studied in isolation with each other, and that urban policies will have ramifications for both urban and surrounding ex-urban areas.