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Smart Cities for Smarter Citizens: Participatory Planning in Housing Renovation using 3D BIM Tools: the Case of Eckart Vaartbroek
Get PDFThe Triangulum Project is one of the first Smart Cities and Communities (SCC1) Lighthouse projects under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation, developing urban laboratories in Eindhoven (NL), Manchester (UK) and Stavanger (NO). These labs serve as testbeds where new technologies and innovative approaches integrating energy, transport and ICTs1 solutions are tested so that successful cases can be replicated in other areas of the city and beyond. In Eindhoven, one of the objectives is to change the concept of the Eckart-Vaartbroek neighbourhood from a low-priced housing area to a modern, energy-efficient one (approx. 15,000 m2 of living area). With an ICT-based 3D BIM tool (WoonConnect) the tenants can customise energy-retrofit packages for their dwellings. Within the combinations, the residents can choose between options that include insulation, improved glazing, solar panels and increased use of renewable energy. Furthermore, the co-creative approach aims at raising awareness of the opportunities for reducing the energy bill, including recommendations such as changing human behaviour. Thus, it allows all parties to identify appropriate measures to be taken to achieve maximum energy savings. At the same time, the tool intends to empower the user through the architectural design process and to enhance citizen engagement. During the project lifetime, this neighbourhood is turning towards a renovated and sustainable district. The experience of Eindhoven in implementing this solution provides a starting point for initiating replication of similar projects in any city willing to invest and promote smart participation and citizen participation in planning and implementation. This paper explores Eckart Vaartbroek's dwelling refurbishment use-case as a reference for a co-creative process of architecture and urbanism using ICT and 3D BIM-based solutions
Between Urban Transformation and Everyday Practices – Participation and Co-Production in the City of Tarija, Bolivia
Get PDFBy 2050, around two-thirds of the global population will live in an urban environment. Urban growth is
currently prevailing in the developing world, and in this context informality is seen as a general mode of
urbanisation. The patterns of growth vary regionally, and the resultant urban fabric is expected to become
more complex in various world regions in the years to come. In addition, not only are many regions facing
dramatic and unforeseeable changes in the environment, but non-renewable resources are also becoming
increasingly scarce; thus, concerns regarding sustainable and resilient development have been internationally
voiced. Therefore, understanding and managing urban growth has become of general concern to a wider
public.
In particular in the Global South, a dichotomy between formal and informal urbanisation has prevailed that
has hindered a sustainable and resilient development in various ways. What comes to mind, here, is the
often-used image of a São Paolo favela segregated from the city's wealthier neighbourhoods—a common
phenomenon in many cities of the developing world. Against this background, many efforts have taken a
more social and political approach in order to overcome this dichotomy and, thus, to promote more inclusive
development—a cities for all approach. At the core of these approaches are co-ordination and
communication between top-down and bottom-up approaches, the reduction of tensions between formally
and informally developed urban areas, and modes of participation and co-production that consider local
action as well as long-term and large-scale effects. However, what does participation and co-production
mean and which are the framing conditions under which they can be implemented? The paper pursues these
questions for the medium-sized City in Tarija, Bolivia, where a massive urban expansion has overwhelmed
formal planning instruments in recent years. Moreover, it aims to contribute with practical experiences to the
conference on how social segregation in fast growing city regions could be overcome.
The paper describes Tarija's urban expansion from a historical perspective and identifies critical
environmental as well as social challenges as well as the shaping dynamics. Furthermore, the literature and
development plans review is enhanced by semi-structured interviews and by two transdisciplinary workshops
that where held in 2018, in the city of Tarija, in the framework of a real-world laboratory. This paper argues
that urbanisation as it transpired in Tarija was highly inefficient and that the main benefactors were land
traffickers, which has promoted the formal/informal dichotomy even further. The paper discusses three main
points to tackle this issue. First, it identifies an institutional gap between the central and local government,
which is considered the main cause for this formal/informal dichotomy. Second, it proposes the real-world
laboratory as a more dynamic and adaptive instrument for urban development than formal planning, as well
as a mediator between top-down and bottom-up approaches. And third, it discusses the framing conditions
under which informally developed urban areas could be further developed
Topics and Sentiments in Online Place Reviews, an Innovative Way of Understanding the Perception of a City without Asking
Get PDFUser-generated content provides rich and easily accessible data for tourism destination managers, especially when combined with a sentiment analysis to uncover perceptions and attitudes. These reviews are often primarily useful in a business/attraction-context and scaling up their relevance for destination management is problematic. Furthermore, the reliability of such online sources can be questioned, thereby impeding its application for research and practice. By combining data of a traditional in-situ survey in five main cultural heritage attraction in Antwerp (Belgium) with scraped data of these same attractions from the TripAdvisor website, this paper attempts to shed a light on the added value and reliability of a big data sentiment analysis. The sentiment analysis combines two lexicons as well as Latent Dirichlet Allocation. The results show promise in that, even though the characteristics between the in-situ sample and the scraped sample are quite different, the sentiments and themes are largely overlapping while the Net Promotor Score as calculated via the TripAdvisor reviews is close to the measured Net Promotor Score through the visitor survey. Still, certain limitations remain within the big data sentiment analysis approach, leading to the conclusion that both methods can be highly compatible in order to efficiently generate deeper, more complete results
Connected E-Mobility, IoT and its Emerging Requirements for Planning and Infrastructures
Get PDFThe worldwide expansion of electric vehicle usage comes with the challenge of adapting the respective traffic and charging station infrastructure in cities, resulting in profound changes not only to traffic itself but also to the way energy is being distributed. An ongoing all-embracing real-time IoT-network will provide a vast amount of new possible data for planners, for example in order to get useful insights into the relationship between traffic flow patterns and loading patterns of e-vehicles. For this, the use of e-mobility data is essential. This paper will present potential ways of gathering data for infrastructure planning and user-oriented recommendations, such as movement patterns and charging status of vehicles, since this information is already available but not being shared by car companies. The given perspective will take into consideration individual vehicles and vehicle fleets as well as the traffic network as a whole. Efficient access to current and predicted load for charging stations in the electric vehicle transition would be a beneficial factor for the promotion of electricity-powered vehicles. In this paper, we lay out different approaches. Besides manufacturer related data-acquissition, this includes as well to provide this information via user-generated content (UGC), and to derive charging recommendations from a user-oriented, intelligent recommendation system. Furthermore, the challenges regarding the effects towards the electricity network and the necessity of physical charging infrastructure will be discussed. In a future situation of moreheterogenous and dispersed energy supply, being able to predict the energy consumption of e-vehicles individually and instantaneously based on collected data will be a necessity for energy supplying companies. This will intentionally lead to more grid stability, by distributing electricity inside the network based on predicted loads, as well as work as an incentive for drivers to make the transition to e-mobility, because finding e-charging stations will eventually not be an issue. This paper will take the respective questions and potential control mechanisms for traffic patterns into consideration
Solar Energy Simulations in Historical Districts for Retrofitting and Evidence-Based Decision Making: Data Challenges for Low Carbon Cities in the EU Neighbourhood & Accession Countries
Get PDFTransformation of cities to low carbon cities is a global policy priority that attracts a wide range of actors, including policymakers, local governments, scientists as well as associated technology companies. On the other hand, the geographic, climatic, and structural variations across cities are high not only at the global level but also in sub-continental regions. Besides, the cities also contain highly varied districts with respect to their built environment, land use, microclimatic conditions, and geographical and topological features, where some type of districts may require similar solutions adopted in other cities rather than the district’s own city. Historical districts constitute a particular category from this perspective, where retrofitting and application of smart energy systems and energy-efficient solutions depend on different issues than in other districts. Historical districts have unique problems with respect to the adoption of smart and energy-efficient technologies. While positive carbon districts imply energy production at the site, low carbon districts instead focus on decreasing energy usage and carbon footprints. The selection of the appropriate basic strategy at the district level relies on sound scientific assessment. The assessment should be able to evaluate whether the district is capable of locally producing positive energy outputs without significantly altering or destroying the historical characteristics and ongoing or proposed socio-economic functions. As an example, assessment of the application of solar energy panels in historic neighbourhoods require building based modelling approaches for: a) understanding whether solar energy panels may function within a required technical operation range in built environments; b) if the energy produced locally may be distributed to other buildings in the district; c) if historical buildings can safely accommodate solar energy panels and associated infrastructure; d) if energy storage is necessary and if buildings possess suitable interior spaces for safe storage of electric energy. All these categories of assessment require standardised, rich, transmissible data on various properties of the interior and exterior of existing buildings, of open spaces, and of existing infrastructure. Often, historical neighbourhoods consist of a large number of buildings and extensions which have been subject to an unknown number of interventions over time with varying quality. It is highly unlikely that any existing databases could provide the basis for the extraction of relevant information, as in the past the purposes of such data collectiond did not involve objectives regarding energy efficiency or positive energy potentials. On the other hand, it would be costly and technically challenging to collect all such data from the site by traditional surveys. This problem is exacerbated as many cities now face sudden policy pressures to apply sustainable energy action plans at short notice. All these issues force the stakeholders to seek effective solutions for collecting data, structuring of data and conducting integrated-holistic retrofit simulations in historical districts that provide the evidence-based information for the selection of the suitable technological approach and strategic choices to transform historical cities into low carbon cities. In addition, such simulations might enable a healthier assessment of making use of carbon credits and other incentives in line with such strategies and interventions. This paper discusses the general situation of historical districts and their assessment as positive or low energy districts, in the context of EU Neighbourhood countries. As a first step, the paper evaluates the regulatory framework regarding the UNDP Sustainable Development Goals, global climate change, EU Energy Policy, cultural heritage preservation, retrofitting in historical districts, and research-policy connections. Next, the paper surveys the literature associated with the data problems in the simulation of the application of sustainable energy systems and provides a critical evaluation of the general case of historical districts. Third, the paper explores the situation of data assets in the EU, its neighbourhood and Turkey, with a particular emphasis on building level data about buildings in historic districts. The paper discusses alternative approaches to effective data collection and joining strategies that would serve for different levels of PV solar energy simulations in historical districts. The paper concludes by providing a research agenda on PV Solar Energy simulations in historical districts for improving relationships between scientific research and policies addressing Climate Change
Identifying Policies and Legislative Frameworks to Create Integrated Innovative Public Transport in Gauteng Province
Get PDFUrban Public Transport (UPT) plays an imperative role in a society, it allows people to access different locations easily. Good urban public transport services attract more users reducing private vehicle on the roads and creating an environment with less gas emission produced. Key instruments used globally for good public transport service are policies and legislative frameworks. In South Africa, all three spheres of government National, Provincial and Local have implemented good urban public transport systems. However, in all the three spheres of government, there seems to be lack of connectivity of different systems of innovative urban public transport (Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and Gautrain system). Therefore, this paper aims to identify policies and legislative frameworks put in place to integrate innovative urban public transport in Gauteng province and what strategies can be implemented from these documents. The study adopted qualitative research approach were literature of previous documented studies, urban public transport drafted policies and legislative framework documents in South Africa, and interviews conducted with urban public transport officials. The results revealed that there are policies and legislative frameworks implemented, however, it is difficult to practice the strategies and ideas documented as these systems are owned by different entities. The study concluded that the provincial government need to identify ways of strengthening the available policies and legislative frameworks to integrate the different innovative public transport systems, by doing so, a common ground could be identified for integration leading to convenient public transport creating seamless travelling in the province. The study recommends that policies and legislative frameworks used in developed countries with good integrated urban public transport should be adopted and practiced in Gauteng province
Das Konzept der Regiopole als Entwicklungsstrategie kleinerer Großstädte im (inter-)nationalen Standortwettbewerb
Get PDFSeit circa zehn Jahren wird das Konzept der Regiopole in der deutschen Raumordnung diskutiert. Das Konzept zeigt als Entwicklungsmöglichkeit für (kleinere) Großstädte und Regionen, die sich im ständig verändernden Wettbewerb um Bevölkerung und Unternehmen positionieren möchten, eine Alternative zu etablierten stadtregionalen Instrumenten (z.B. Metropolregionen) auf. Angelehnt an das metropolitane Konzept sieht sich eine Regiopole als kooperative Organisationsform zur Vernetzung unterschiedlicher Akteure einer Stadtregion und deren Verflechtungsbereich. Historische, kommunale Verwaltungsgrenzen können dabei durch moderne Governance-Strukturen überwunden werden und an tatsächliche, funktionale Stadt- und Regionsstrukturen angepasst werden. Durch Einbindung von Akteuren der Raumentwicklung (z.B. Regionalverbände, Kommunen, wirtschaftliche Akteure, Bürger- und Zivilgesellschaft) soll die Gesamtregion durch eine gestärkte regionale Identität nach innen sowie ein gestärktes regionales Image nach außen profitieren. Seit 2006 haben sich sieben Städte und Regionen in Deutschland als Regiopolen positioniert und im deutschen Regiopole-Netzwerk zusammengeschlossen. Diese informellen Stadt-Umland-Kooperationen stützen sich auf Strategien wie das Leitbild „Wettbewerbsfähigkeit stärken“ der Ministerkonferenz für Raumordnung aus dem Jahr 2016, sind jedoch (noch) nicht als Raumkategorie in der deutschen Bundesraumordnung verankert. In diesem Beitrag wird am Beispiel von drei ausgewählten bestehenden Regiopolen diskutiert, welcher konzeptionelle Ansatz hinter einer Regiopole steht und welcher Mehrwert für die jeweiligen Stadtregionen erwartet werden kann. Dabei wird anhand der in diesen Regiopolen in den Mittelpunkt gerückten Zielen und Aktivitäten auch verdeutlicht, welche Kooperationen – trotz auch weiterhin bestehendem innerregionalenWettbewerb in anderen Bereichen – eingegangen werden, um im nationalen Kontext Wettbewerbsvorteile zu generieren. Abschließend werden am Beispiel der potentiellen Regiopolregion Koblenz-Mittelrhein-Westerwald Eckpunkte der Ausgestaltung einer Regiopolregion diskutiert. Das Oberzentrum liegt im nördlichen Rheinland-Pfalz und umfasst mit seiner Verflechtungsregion Mittelrhein-Westerwald einen Einzugsbereichvon über einer Million Einwohnern. Seit einigen Jahren findet sich, initiiert durch einen regionalen Verein, die Regiopolenidee in der Region wieder. Aktuell sind Akteure wie die Stadt Koblenz, die Planungsgemeinschaft Mittelrhein-Westerwald, die IHK oder ein regionales Unternehmensbündnis im Prozess eingebunden. Die Diskussion um die konzeptionelle Ausgestaltung einer Regiopolregion in Koblenz und der Region Mittelrhein-Westerwald wird anhand folgender Fragestellungen geführt: Welche potentiellen Ziele und Aktivitäten könnte das Konzept in der Region aufgreifen? Welche lokalen und regionalen Akteure sind in den Etablierungsprozess und die Organisationsstruktur einzubinden? Wie könnte eine räumliche oder funktionale Abgrenzung der Regiopolregion ausgestaltet werden? Welchen Mehrwert würden Koblenz und die Region durch eine Stadt-Umland-Kooperation erfahren? Anhand dieser Fragestellungen zeigt der Beitrag einerseits auf, ob und in welcher Form Koblenz und dieRegion Mittelrhein-Westerwald durch die Initiierung einer Regiopolregion langfristig profitieren können. Andererseits wird ausgehend von diesem Fallbeispiel der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit Verflechtungen in einer Stadtregion durch neue oder zusätzliche Governancestrukturen (wie z.B. einer Regiopole) besser abgebildet und dadurch auch Stadtregionen insgesamt erfolgreicher entwickelt werden können
Walk Your City: Using Nudging to Promote Walking
Get PDFIn recent decades, a stagnation or even a decline in pedestrian traffic has been observed in many cities, despite the ambitious efforts of national and international action plans, strategies and initiatives. Our project, which is named “Walk Your City”, addresses this problem by designing, developing and evaluating an innovative behavioural-based pedestrian initiative, with a focus on “nudging” as the applied method. The overall aim is to decisively raise awareness of walking as an active and health-enhancing activity through behavioural approaches such as nudging. The core of our approach is represented by “nudges”, which aretriggered via an app as well as offline campaigns. The story refers to a not-so-distant dystopian future where the pilot city of Graz in Austria suffers from pollution and traffic chaos, as well as climate change. Through regular walking, as well as visiting places such as parks or viewpoints, users of the app are rewarded with tokens. Following the idea of crowdsourcing, these tokens can be invested into desired improvements such as parking benches or zebra crossings. Through this unique combination of technological innovation, a funapproach, behavioural concepts and a creative campaign, participants are motivated to explore and experience the city on foot. Walking should be perceived as a genuine and healthy alternative for short distances (<3 km), and the first choice when covering small distances (<1 km). The nudging approach will be iteratively optimized in terms of acceptance, functionality and usability, using focus groups, internal lab tests and expert workshops. This strategy will ensure a practice-oriented project implementation that is tailored to the needs of the different target groups, such as students, commuters and tourists. The mobility and health data obtained during the pilot test will be used to evaluate the suitability and impact of the nudging approach in an academic paper. As the empirical data show, a behavioural change in terms of a larger share of walking in the modal split, as well a positive impact on the interest and awareness regarding the effects of walking, can be observed
STEMPICOM – Geodatenkonzept für gemeinschaftsbasierte Lieferdienste in ländlichen Regionen
Get PDFDie strukturellen Probleme in ländlichen Räumen sind hinreichend beschrieben und umfassen eine Vielzahl
unterschiedlicher Themenbereiche. Eines davon ist der fortdauernde Strukturwandel im lokalen Einzelhandel
und seine Konsequenzen auf die Versorgung der dort lebenden Bevölkerung mit Gütern des täglichen
Bedarfs. In Folge von Ladenschließungen mangels lokaler Kaufkraft, kommt es mancherorts bereits zu
strukturellen Versorgungslücken, die insbesondere für die alternde und damit immobilere Bevölkerung
spürbar sind. Die Wegestrecken zum nächsten Nahversorger bedeuten für die dort lebenden Bewohner ein
wachsendes Zeit- und Mobilitätserfordernis.1
Darüber hinaus gibt es kaum Kenntnisse darüber, ob das veränderte (digitale) Konsumverhalten und der
daraus folgende, immer populärer werdende Onlinehandel, diese Entwicklungen in ländlichen Regionen
eher verschärfen oder potenziell entgegenwirken können. Logistisch betrachtet, wird die spezielle Situation
des ländlichen Raums besonders an der sogenannten „letzten Meile“ deutlich. Das durch den Onlinehandel
entstehende Paketaufkommen wird größtenteils von Kurier-Express-Paket-(KEP)-Dienstleistern abgewickelt,
die den Transport und die Wegestrecken der Waren vom Händler oder Distributionslager bis zur Haustür
jedes Kunden übernehmen. Das letzte Wegestück der Transportkette ist in der Regel das teuerste, da die Zahl
der verschiedenen Ablieferungsorte, zu denen immer kleinere Warenmengen geliefert werden, wächst.2
Auch
aus einer Zukunftsstudie (2016) vom Fraunhofer IML geht hervor, dass ein zunehmender Zeit- und
Kostendruck auf der letzten Meile entsteht. Im ländlichen Raum ist dies vor allem in der Überwindung
großer Distanzen sowie unterdurchschnittlich wachsenden Gütermengen begründet.3
Dennoch bestehen, laut Fraunhofer Institut IML, große Chancen für Einzelhandelsversorger im ländlichen
Raum durch die Potenziale einer digitalen Vernetzung.4
Gerade neue und innovative Zustellkonzepte, zu
denen beispielsweise eigeninitiative oder gemeinschaftsbasierte Lieferdienste, wie das Projekt „Digitale
Dörfer“ des Fraunhofer IESE zählen,5
können sich einerseits positiv auf das Wachstum bzw. das Bestehen
der regionalen Erzeuger, andererseits auf eine Verbesserung der Nahversorgungssituation der Bewohner
ländlicher Gebiete auswirken.6
Analysiert man die genannten Logistikprozesse etwas detaillierter, lassen sich
im Wesentlichen drei relevante Akteursgruppen identifizieren: Nachfrager, Lieferanten und Anbieter.
Der Forschungsschwerpunkt ‚nextPlace‘ der Technischen Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe untersuchte im
Rahmen einer vom Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI) geförderten
mFUND1-Vorstudie das Zusammenwirken dieser Akteursgruppen und deren technische
Optimierungsmöglichkeiten in Form geodatenbasierter Konzepte und qualitativer, raumplanerischer
Umfragen. Die Online-Befragung der Akteursgruppen stellt aktuell nur eine Stichprobe dar und ist bislang
nicht repräsentativ. Aber aus den ersten Rückläufen zeichnet sich ab, dass auf Seiten der Nachfrager
besonders in Klein- und großen Mittelstädten tendenziell ein hohes Maß an Offenheit gegenüber einem
gemeinschaftsbasierten Dienst besteht. Allerdings ist den demographischen Merkmalen zu entnehmen, dass
die Nachfrage insgesamt mit steigendem Alter abnimmt. Aus technologischer Perspektive ergaben die
Experteninterviews mit bestehenden Lebensmittel-Lieferservices, dass außer einer üblichen Smartphone-Navigation, aktuell kein spezieller Routing-Algorithmus und folglich bislang auch keine Echtzeitdaten zum
Einsatz kommen.
Im Ergebnis lässt dies darauf schließen, dass Erfolg und Akzeptanz eines digitalen, gemeinschaftsbasierten
Dienstes sehr stark von der Optimierung einzelner, konkreter Probleme und deren ausführlicher Erläuterung
abhängt und nicht unbedingt automatisch von einer „Digital ist besser“-Disruption ausgegangen werden
kann. Für das nun zu beantragende mFUND-Hauptprojekt hat dies zur Folge, dass, neben einer noch
stärkeren Zielgruppenausrichtung, insbesondere auch das individuelle Mobilitätsverhalten jeder
Nutzergruppe und die unterschiedlichen Abhängigkeiten ihrer einzelner Wegeketten zu berücksichtigen sind
Monitoring Street Infrastructures with Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFSensor-based IoT data is enhancing information gathering methods for urban planning in many ways and, due to the growing data pool provided by these sensors, more and more cities and municipalities are consequently putting the use of artificial intelligence-based (AI) methods on their agenda. One area of urban planning that will benefit significantly from the new possibilities enabled by AI is that of infrastructure monitoring. As the topic of the investment backlog of German road infrastructures increasingly pushes into public discourse, many potential areas for application of such a system are opening up. Given the fact that a large part of the German road infrastructure was planned and built several decades ago, and considering that the traffic volume has increased tremendously since then, the urgency in the development of improved maintenance methods is evident: Today's solutions for infrastructure monitoring are either too labor-intensive, too resource-intensive or too inflexible for the scenario at hand. However, a promising avenue for further research opened up through the advent of mobile communication devices, such as smartphones, incombination with artificial intelligence approaches. This paper describes the methodology applied in the ongoing research project DatEnKoSt, in which these comparatively cheap and sensor-laden devices are used to realize low-cost acquisition methods: Mounting the smartphone in a vehicle, a multi-sensor datastream can be recorded, including, for instance, accelerometer data, GPS coordinates, image or even audio data. From the datastream, features correlated with the road condition can then be extracted, e.g., image processing methods may extract individual cracks from the image data, signal processing can aid analysis of the accelerometer data to determine strength of vibrations, etc.. Using supervised learning methods, thesefeatures may be mapped to standardized profiles of the current state of the infrastructure. Even more,predictive methods can, in addition to a mere monitoring of the current state of the infrastructure, enable new ways to provide more precise forecasts and eventually, leveraging optimization algorithms, automatically derive the right maintenance measures for each given situation. The municipal preservation of traffic routes becomes more efficient and sustainable. The methodology enables the potential for further use in the light of real-time as well as predictive road infrastructure monitoring such as winter road services