Objectives

The goal of PROPOLIS is to research, develop and test integrated land use and transport policies, planning tools and comprehensive assessment methodologies in order to define sustainable long-term urban strategies and to demonstrate their effects in European cities.

To reach this goal the project develops a comprehensive and integral framework of methodologies, including integrated land use, transport and environmental modelling, indicator, evaluation and presentation systems. This framework is implemented via accessible planning tools in a wide range of different European urban regions in order to systematically analyse, identify and demonstrate the effects of policy packages that increase the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the case cities and European urban regions in general.

The project builds on an existing and tested system for analysing urban policies. It is based on a state-of-the-art land use / transport models combined with a set of modules to calculate urban sustainability indicators and a decision support tool for the indicator-based evaluation of different urban policies in the field of land use and transport.

PROPOLIS develops and expands this system by developing the theory, methodology, user interface, evaluation process and outputs in order to attain a more efficient and comprehensive tool for policy testing. This system makes it possible to define sustainable urban policies on a sound scientific basis.

The more detailed goals and ways to achieve them are presented below.

i. To develop further the theory of urban transport and land use systems by:

developing the feed-back link from environment to land use and transport in order to have fully integrated urban land use, transport and environmental models

developing and adapting recent studies and theories concerning economic evaluation in land use/transport models

ii. To develop the planning and assessment methodologies further by:

introducing new essential key indicators addressing, for example, employment, regional economy, biodiversity, accessibility, microclimate and total energy use by the land use and transport systems

developing an internet-based analysis tool to facilitate inter-city comparisons and by improving access to results/information for the wider user community. This includes also new user interface and presentation options

updating and developing each of the modules to produce more illustrative outputs that comply with user needs

automating the data flows between different modules in order to have a more efficient tool for policy testing

developing and testing the evaluation methods through a decision support tool, which is developed in close contact with Client-Partners, to be more user-friendly and transparent.

developing the overall framework to be more general and open for different types of models and by producing data on different indicators for benchmarking purposes.

iii. To execute a policy testing process in 7 European urban regions by:

using the knowledge already gained from the numerous tests made in the case cities and by concentrating on the most promising ones

executing a systematic process of policy testing including innovative policies and their combinations

studying, as a priority, the definition and the application of an optimum level of pricing, its combinations with other policies and the long-term land use effects.

iv. To search for optimum policy combinations for each of the case cities and to demonstrate their effects.

v. To analyse the test results in order to define general urban strategies, to demonstrate their effects in the case cities and to aim for generalised conclusions that are not dependent on the test cities nor the models used by:

using a variety of different state of the art urban land use and transport models

using a variety of different types of test cities

using exactly the same indicators for each city to measure the effects in order to have comparable results

vi. To identify policy packages that are likely to achieve the following goals, among others, without compromising economic efficiency and social sustainability (compared with the base scenarios):

- reduction of greenhouse gases from the urban land use and transport system
  > 20 %

- reduction in energy use of the urban transport system > 20 %

- reduction in traffic accidents > 15 %

These policy packages are likely also to reduce urban pollution and congestion while, at the same time, ensuring accessibility and mobility. They will clearly demonstrate the potential of integrated land use and transport planning as well as the effects, on a strategic level, of emphasising collective and other sustainable transport forms.

vii. To establish close contacts with the policy and decision makers and users of the system by:

involving them in the following phases and tasks of the project:

- need for and definition of new indicators

- definition of acceptable and affordable policies

- definition of indicator weights and the testing and use of the
  decision support tool

- definition of illustrative, transparent and understandable
  output formats

viii. To adopt an effective dissemination and exploitation programme during and after the project by:

communicating with the international and national networks dealing with sustainable urban development

disseminating the results through internet, conference papers, articles, reports, CDs, leaflets, etc.

providing exploitation possibilities for partners (licensing, further work), client-partners (a system for practical analysis of policies and projects in test cities) and the Community (general conclusions for European cities) by providing an approach and operational system that will be the leading one in the world.

It is the aim of the Consortium to gain a recognised leading position in the world for the PROPOLIS approach, methodology and tools by presenting convincing evidence through the results of the project.

  

Innovation

PROPOLIS is based on an integrated modelling framework extended to include GIS interfaces and an indicator system for measuring the environmental, social and economic dimensions of urban sustainability. Furthermore, the results (indicator values for each test city) are assessed using a decision support tool.

Methodology

The most advanced urban models today cover the interaction between land use and transport. This project will move one step forward by introducing also the interaction between the environment, land use and transport.

PROPOLIS applies three leading urban land use and transport model types within the same evaluation framework and builds new evaluation, GIS, internet and other tools that will be common for all the models.

Instead of relying on traditional concentration modelling the GIS-based raster system increases the spatial resolution and makes exposure modelling possible. The system also produces new relevant indicators addressing e.g. economy, employment, biodiversity, microclimate and accessibility.

There is enormous untapped potential which the internet affords planners to interact with the public and to extend the possibilities for consultation and dissemination of information. In this respect the project takes an important step forward. It proposes to exploit what promises to become one of the most important channels of planning information communication in the future by researching, developing and testing a prototype internet tool (together with our local authority planning partners) as a means of improving the accessibility and visual presentation of the results produced in the project.

The policy testing process will also be designed to study especially different pricing measures and their combinations with other policy options. This is expected to produce innovative and effective results that are also reflected in CO₂ emissions and energy use. An important part of the project is to study the totality of both land use and transport and estimate their total energy use, CO₂ and other emissions.

The nature of the models used makes it possible to move from simple transport and land use variables towards important and more relevant environmental, social and economic issues. These issues in form of new indicators will include, among others, indicators addressing biodiversity, regional economy and competitiveness, employment, need for new construction and the justice of distribution of the negative/positive economic effects of policies.

The concept of justice, based on optional theories of justice available for the user, is new and has been experimentally used in context of urban planning. The experiment showed that this line of research should be continued as the approach offers an effective tool for mutual learning, understanding and conflict resolution.

There is a long tradition of estimating the economic effects from transport models but the emerging need is to develop the theory and applications for estimating the total economic effects from combined land use/transport/environment models. It is the aim of PROPOLIS to develop and adapt theories in this field.

Cities are interacting with the surrounding regions. It is, therefore, not enough to concentrate only on cities themselves. Important part of the project is to analyse the cities together with their surrounding regions.

  

Policy testing and Analysis

By developing automatic interfaces between modules the policy testing process will be systematic and extensive. The process is expected to produce innovative policy combinations and reveal unexpected positive and negative side effects of the policies as well as ways to mitigate the negative ones.

The project will clearly demonstrate, in concrete terms, the effects of strategic integrated land use and transport planning and the use of collective and other sustainable transport forms on urban pollution, congestion and accessibility.

The proposal is to a large extent designed to search for results that can be generalised and are valid for typical European cities and urban regions. This is made possible through the testing procedure in different types of cities with different methods in order not only to have city or model specific results.

All the test cities produce values for the same set of indicators with the same methodology. This will form a firm basis for benchmarking for the test cities and other European cities that can produce values at least for part of the indicator set.

The active involvement of the decision-makers, users and client-partners will ensure that the project is designed to answer the most relevant questions. The external scientific network helps in obtaining the latest information for policies, methods and experiences from other research.

It is the aim of the Consortium to gain a recognised leading position in the world for the PROPOLIS approach, methodology and tools by presenting convincing evidence through the results of the projects.