Simulating urban dynamics and international governance of transportation infrastructure projects

TL;DR

This paper introduces a co-evolution model for cities and transportation networks at the international scale, helping to understand complex dynamics and optimize sustainable infrastructure planning.

Contribution

It presents a novel model that simulates the interplay between urban growth and transportation governance, incorporating sustainability considerations.

Findings

Strong interactions between urban dynamics and governance structures

Identification of optimization patterns balancing cost and accessibility

Potential applications in sustainable long-term international transport planning

Abstract

Systems of cities at the macroscopic scale have their trajectories conditioned by the evolution of infrastructure networks. This leads to complex planning and management situations in the particular case of international transportation infrastructure projects. To understand such dynamics and anticipate future sustainable trajectories, we introduce a co-evolution model between cities and transportation networks at the international scale, which simulates network growth by including transportation governance. The model is applied to synthetic systems of cities and the parameter space systematically explored, showing strong interactions between urban dynamics and governance structure. We also study optimisation patterns as compromises between construction cost and accessibility gain, with possible future applications to sustainable long-term planning of international transport projects.