 From Macro to Micro—How Much Micro is too Much?Michael Wegener Transport Reviews, 2011, vol. 31, issue 2, 161-177 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. Date: 2011 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:transr:v:31:y:2011:i:2:p:161-177 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2010.532883 Access Statistics for this article Transport Reviews is currently edited by Professor David Banister and Moshe Givoni More articles in Transport Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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