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@article{Sivakumar:2012,
author = {Sivakumar, A and Keirstead, J and Polak, JW},
journal = {Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering},
title = {Integrated Modelling of the Demand & Supply Vectors in Urban Energy Systems: Conceptual and Modelling Frameworks for the Development of a New Toolkit},
year = {2012}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - This paper presents the conceptual and modelling frameworks underlying the development of SynCity, an urban systems modelling tool developed as part of the BP-sponsored Urban Energy Systems (UES) project at Imperial College London. SynCity, a hierarchical model system developed in Java, comprises four layers – a spatial layout model, an agent-based microsimulation model of urban activities (AMMUA), a resource flow and conversion/network optimisation model; and an urban energy service networks model. The AMMUA comprises three inter-related modules -- an activity travel demand model, an urban freight logistics component, and a land use module – and simulates a variety of agents including individuals, households, businesses, and industries. While the spatial layout and resource flow models are optimization models aimed at producing normative and potentially optimal solutions, the AMMUA is a descriptive model that aims to predict realistic patterns of agent behaviour. This combination forms a novel approach to modelling urban energy systems which is, to the best of our knowledge, among the first of its kind (this approach has some precedent in continuous equilibrium network design models). The complexity of integrated systems modelling does not typically allow for normative models and our approach conceptually overcomes the difficulty, thus simultaneously serving as a descriptor of behaviour and a design tool. The implementation of SynCity described in this paper is not only the first empirical application of an activity-based travel demand system in the UK but goes further to tie activity and travel demand patterns to resource consumption and energy demand. More importantly, the research breaks new ground in the way that transport demand is conceptualised – as part of a wider system of interactive social and economic relationships that are examined both from a normative and descriptive perspective.
AU - Sivakumar,A
AU - Keirstead,J
AU - Polak,JW
PY - 2012///
TI - Integrated Modelling of the Demand & Supply Vectors in Urban Energy Systems: Conceptual and Modelling Frameworks for the Development of a New Toolkit
T2 - Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
ER -
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