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Immersive Imagination in Urban Oases of Mindfulness: The VR-SenseCity Toolbox for Sensible, Emotional and Measurable Experiences in Future Smart Cities
Get PDFQuality of life, health and well-being, as well as the creative potential originating from positive experiences and interaction with our environment and interaction are pivotal human factors underlying a rich and productive social context. Respect and careful treatment of users, i.e., the citizen who will populate, co-create and co-operate in the scenarios, mandate overarching topics for developing user centered designschematas. Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have recently offered tools to anticipate the affordances of future scenarios. In the serious game VR-SenseCity (Paletta et al., 2017) we created tools for the imagination of affective and sensory experiences, in particular, referring to visual affordances that enable induction of imaginated sensory experiences in real urban environments. We investigated the potential for the motivation of elderly people, in particular, persons with dementia, to encounter their daily environment in positive attitude, with pleasant and aware sensory experiences, the purpose to improve their cognitive reserve (Stern, 2009). The functionalities were developed in cooperation with a Co-creation group of four elderly persons providing substantial critical and constructive feedback for the development of the toolbox
The Role of ICT in Mapping Resources for Sustainable Historic Urban Regeneration: Case Studies of Amsterdam and Salerno
Get PDFAccording to the UNESCO Recommendations on the Historical Urban Landscape (HUL), mapping the available resources is critical for successful project implementation. These resources entail natural, cultural and human resources ranging from tangible to intangible. Mapping these resources can contribute to a systematical identification, analysis, and classification of location-based values for the management of a sustainable historic urban regeneration process. Currently, the mainly adopted mapping approaches are paper map, online mapping applications, non-spatial mapping, geography information system (GIS), surveys andinterviews. These tools include both traditional and innovative tools, however they are quite diverse and not integrated. The innovative tools incorporating information and communication technology (ICT) are recognized to be useful to foster a public inclusion and a bottom-up management for the sustainable historic urban regeneration. This because these tools enable a variety of actors to create and visualize data. Based on this proposition, this research investigates the role of ICT in mapping resources in particular in a participatory way to support aninclusive implementation of sustainable historic urban regeneration practices. In this paper, the role of ICT is studied through literature review and case studies. The literature review provides the current application in and future potential of ICT for mapping resources. To complement the results of the literature review, two case studies are conductued in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Salerno (Italy). The case studies show that different data sources such as location-based social networks, administrative data, online and offline surveys and interviews, and local sensors are useful for participatory mapping of resources. This assessment of two case studies revealed that ICT platforms such as open data platforms, interactive platforms, decision support systems are recognized as three main solutions for disseminating knowledge to the public and enable their participation in historic urban regeneration processes. The outcomes show that ICT has potential for fostering the public participation to achieve sustainableregeneration of historic urban areas
Usability of Open Data for Smart City Applications – Evaluation of Data, Development of Application and Creation of Visual Dashboards
Get PDFToday different sources of information on urban areas are becoming openly available at various spatial and temporal resolutions and extents. They are crucial for driving towards “Smart Cities”. Many smart cityrelevant applications, to understand and predict certain phenomena such as mobility, air quality, etc., depend on large amounts of readily available good quality data. Many datasets related to such topics are already publicly available. However, the appropriate use of these datasets must be ensured by checking the quality of data in a systematic way. Under quality of data, one not only evaluate the number of missing or false data points but also determine data characteristics such as resolution, frequency and ease of use, etc. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to evaluate the open data available in different portals (80 in total) with special consideration to these factors and to evaluate their usability in some of the smart city applications. In this regard, an extensive literature review is carried out. We observed that especially official government data portal often lack these qualities. This could have occurred due to the lack of concrete examples of how cities and citizens can profit from the applications created with the appropriate kind of data. Some civil servants might have experienced some levels of mistrust regarding the abstract ideas of ‘Smart City’ and ‘Open Data’. We therefore illustrate three possible applications, e.g. (a) use of high-resolution low- cost sensor data around Europe (b) GPS trajectories of a large number of taxis monitored inside the city and (c) land-use and accesability data from voluntered geographic information. In this regard, other open source spatial data portals (such as Open Street Map APIs) and open source software such as python and relevant libraries are also utilized. For each application, we elaborate the data characteristics and the detailed methodological steps (e.g., analytics methods) as well as communicate the results with an easy to operate dashboard having strong visualisation and analytical aids (maps, graphs, statistical summary, etc.). The dashboards help to understand the significance of open data and to support decision makers in creatingservices for the citizens with the context of “Smart City”. Finally, we conclude with the limitation and further recommendations to the city officials regarding their role of shaping the future of (smart) cities with the right open data policy
CentropeMAP and CentropeSTATISTICS – Cross-Border Thematic Mapping
Get PDFThe Centrope region unites the territory near the common boundaries of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic. To enhance cross-border information exchange in municipal and regional planning, CentropeMAP was introduced in the year 2005 as a geoportal displaying datasets from the Centrope partner countries in a common interface and is subsequently extended in terms of content and functionality, thus allowing an easy view across the borders. CentropeMAP is also the basis for the interactive cross-border statistics information system CentropeSTATISTICS which allows statistic figures from the fields of demography, economy, and land useto be compared with each other, analysed and graphically displayed. CentropeSTATISTICS concentrates on data at municipality level, which is the major difference to other existing cross-border statistics portals which often present their data only on NUTS 3 or even NUTS 2 levels which is insufficient for a cross-border analysis on a small scale
EmoCycling – individuelles Sicherheitsempfinden von Radfahrenden in Karlsruhe
Get PDFDie Entwicklung des Radverkehrsanteils kommt in vielen deutschen Städten und Kommunen nur langsam voran. Neben politischen Hemmnissen belegen Studien, dass auch ein fehlendes Sicherheitsempfinden im Radverkehr viele Menschen davon abhält, das Rad zu nutzen. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht das individuelle Sicherheitsempfindens von Radfahrenden in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg. Grundlage hierfürist das in der Urban Emotions Initiative entwickelte Framework zur sensorgestützten Messung von biostatistischen Werten zur Stressdetektion von Radfahrenden, das dabei hilft, neuralgische Punkte im Verkehrsnetz sichtbar zu machen. Als neuartige Ergänzung der Methode wird eine situative Triggertechnologie aus dem Bereich des Ambient Assisted Living vorgestellt, mit der die Probanden während der Fahrt Stresssituationen markieren können. Unterstützt wurde die Studie von klassischen Fragebögen zum Thema Sicherheitsempfinden im Radverkehr, die mit der sensorgestützten Stresskartierungabgeglichen wurde. Ziel der Studie war es zu untersuchen, ob die Triggertechnologie die Stressmessung verkehrsplanerisch unterstützen kann und relevante Ergebnisse zur Gestaltung einzelner Verkehrsanlagen liefert. Ein Vergleich der beiden Erhebungsmethoden zeigt, dass sich die Ergebnisse der Methoden gegenseitig bestätigen und zugleich um relevante Informationen ergänzen. Während die Angaben der Probanden zu den markierten Stresspunkten wichtige Informationen zur tatsächlichen Wahrnehmung der Radfahrenden liefern, dokumentiert die Stressmessung Situationen, die in den Angaben der Probanden aus verschiedenen Gründenkeine Beachtung finden. Die Ergebnisse der Studie unterstreichen das Potenzial von Untersuchungsansätzen, die subjektive Angaben und objektivierte Faktoren vereinen
Road Safety from Cyclist’s Perspective
Get PDFRoad safety is an essential design requirement in planning processes of cycling infrastructure. An evaluation criterion for safety are accident statistics, but this criterion lacks reliability with regard to cycling accidents because many accidents are not documented. In addition, an exclusive view of accident statistics only is inadequate because road safety also includes aspects such as objective as well as subjective safety of cyclists. In order to consider the cyclist’s perspective in the planning of cycling facilities, an exploratory study, based on the concept of the Urban Emotions Inititative, was carried out in Augsburg and presented in this contribution. The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of cycling infrastructure on the cyclist's stress and the perception of safety. As a result, 1040 stress situations of 26 cyclists were measured over a distance of 5.0 km using biostatistical measurement technology. 347 stress situations refer directly to road infrastructure and perceived safety. In addition, data from traffic and urban planning as well as other self-collected data regarding objective traffic safety were used to assess the cycling infrastructure. The analysis of the study shows that the objective analysis of road infrastructure and the subjective sense of safety of the cyclists are in many cases corresponding. An interesting result was that stress situations can differ in the same types of cycling facilities. A conclusion for stress and perception of safety is that constructive detail is more detached from stress triggers than the type of cycling facilities in general. An important issue is surface design. Bumps, damaged pavement and tram rails are often stressful, especially in combination with other road users. There are no clear differences in the frequency of conflicts between car drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. The number of stressful situations, in which a pedestrian was involved, was slightly predominant. Stress situations were caused through inappropriate use of cycle lanes, problems with orientation, confusing paths and a lack of acceptance of some types of cycle facilities. Base for thiscontribution is the bachelor thesis Road Safety from Cyclists ́ Perspective (Schmidkunz, 2018)
Preferences for Carsharing-Facilitated Neighbourhoods: a Latent-Class Model
Get PDFOne of the most prominent examples of the emerging sharing economy phenomenon is carsharing. Carsharing provides people short-term access to private vehicles without the higher cost and responsibilities that would come with the ownership of a private car. Carsharing programs provide a fleet of vehicles that are parked in a network of locations which are usually located in urban areas with easy access to other transport modes. According to Shaheen & Cohen (2013) the most prominent carsharing business models include: neighborhood residential; business; government and institutional fleets; transit-based; college and university-based; and personal vehicle sharing (use of privately-owned autos employed in shared-use vehicle services). Among these, neighborhood residential carsharing which focuses on mixed-use, urban and residential neighborhoods, is found to be the most common and profitable business model for providers. Residents who live in the neighborhoods with carsharing facilities do not have to own private cars but can use vehicles easily by subscribing to the carsharing service. To use the shared vehicles, residents only need to prebook the cars online before the trip. Once the preparation is done, residents can freely use vehicles until they annouce they have finished the using. According to Chen & Kockelman (2016), travelers who live in dense neighborhoods and join a carsharing service reduce their energy use and emissions. Moreover, in the same study it is found that the demand for parking infrastructure also decreases when travelers chose to join a carhsaring service instead of using private owned car. Decreased parking demand can result in obselete areas in cities which can be transformed into other land uses such as green facilties or more residential buildings. As modern cities are facing challenges such as traffic jam, air pollution, parking tension, urban land use shortage, carsharing facilities in neighborhoods can provide solutions for better living environments and increased quality of life for residents. In this study, we investigate the willingness of citizens that currently live in urban areas of The Netherlands, to move to a neighborhood with carsharing facilities. For that purpose, a stated choice experiment is designed by considering the attributes of neighborhood residential carsharing: These attributes can becategorized as the specifications of carsharing (carsharing costs, booking time, accessibility to home, parking distance to the destination), specifications of carsharing and housing interacted environment (commuting distance, public transport accessibility, housing location, private parking space, green density, children playing area safety) and specificaitons of houses (house type, ownership, size, price, built time). For data collection, a panel is used which consists of respondents from the Netherlands. In total 623 respondents are gathered for the analysis. In order to segment respondents we applied a latent class analysis. According to the results, the 2-class solution gave the best results. Rho-squared is found to be 0.327. The first class is strongly less willing to move to such neighborhoods; the second class is willing to live in a neighborhood carsharing. The strongly less willing group is mainly influenced by the dwelling characteristics such as size, cost and building year and neighborhood characteristics such as parking availability and commuting distance. Moreover, this group also prefers living in neighborhoods with carsharing facilities if carsharing has no costs (free). The second group who are willing to move in a neighborhood with carsharing facilities is mainly influenced by carsharing and residential attributes. This group prefers carsharing that has no cost with little booking time and 5 min walking distance to home. Moreover, just as the first group, they prefer dwellings with bigger living environments and lower costs. However, the influence of these dwelling preferences on their willingness to live in a neighborhood with a carsharing facility is less than the first group. These results are useful to identify the right socio-demographic groups, residential environments and develop strategies in order to establish casharing facilitated neighborhoods
Entwicklung eines Planungs- und Entscheidungsunterstützungssystems als Baustein für Smart Regions
Get PDFAktuell werden eine Reihe von Initiativen zu Smart City und Smart Region gestartet. Darunter ist u.a. der Prozess der digitalen Vernetzung, den dadurch bedingten neuen Formen der Kommunikation und des Know-how-Transfers sowie die Vermehrung des Wissens durch Informationsaustausch zu verstehen. In einer Smart Region sind dazu entsprechende Dienste auf der Grundlage einer intelligenten Infrastruktur zu entwickeln. Der dazu benötigte Datenprozess lässt sich in die Bereiche Datensammlung, Datenübermittlung und Datenauswertung trennen (Schaaf 2015). Im Ergebnis sollen Beiträge für intelligente Mobilitätskonzepte, die Verwaltungsvereinfachung, Beiträge zum Umgang mit den Anforderungen des demographischen Wandels und weitere Beiträge geleistet werden (Bitkom/Deutscher Städte und Gemeindebund 2018). Im vorliegendenBeitrag soll am Beispiel dreier Landkreise in Sachsen-Anhalt gezeigt werden, wie in den vergangenen Jahren entsprechende Systeme aufgebaut werden konnten und damit ein Beitrag zur digitalen Transformation geleistet wurde. Dabei wurde deutlich das im Umfeld der öffentlichen Verwaltung eine Vielzahl an Datenund Informationen zur Unterstützung des Planungsprozesses benötigt werden, diese oft aber nicht in geeigneter Aktualität oder Qualität vorliegen und häufig aufwendig und Teils mehrfach ausgetauscht werden. Um dem Ziel einer besseren Vernetzung näher zu kommen wurde in den Landkreisen Harz, Mansfeld-Südharz und Börde durch das Land Sachsen-Anhalt die Entwicklung von Planungs- und Entscheidungsunterstützungssystemen auf den Weg gebracht. Um die nachhaltige Nutzung und Weiterentwicklung sicherzustellen, wurde eine entsprechende Verwaltungsvereinbarung unter den Kreisen formuliert und unterzeichnet damit Ergebnisse aus dem einen Förderprojekt vollständig den anderen Kreisen zur Verfügung stehen. Aufbauend auf einer bereits existierenden grundlegenden (Geo-)Dateninfrastrukturwurden in den Weiterentwicklungsschritten Themen wie Austausch von Bauleitplanungsdaten unter Nutzung von XPlanung (Pietsch et al., 2016), Flächenmanagement, kleinräumige Bevölkerungsdaten, Demographie- und Daseinsvorsorge umgesetzt. Die Datenhaltung und Bereitstellung der weiteren IT-Infrastruktur erfolgt zentral beim Landkreis und wird durch Vereinbarungen zur interkommunalen Zusammenarbeit der Mitgliedsgemeinden der jeweiligen Landkreise geregelt. Kernidee ist dabei die Einbeziehung der Gemeinden durch die zur Verfügung Stellung der nötigen Werkzeuge und Datenhaltungsinfrastruktur bei gleichzeitiger Nutzbarmachung der (aggregierten und eingeschränkten) kommunalen Daten für die Kreisplanung. Ein umfangreiches Nutzer- und Rollenkonzept wahrt die Souveränität der Kommunen und sichert die Einhaltung rechtlicher-, vertraglicher- und der gültigen Datenschutz-Rahmenbedingungen (z.B. der Verfügbarkeit von Geobasisdaten, Einwohnermeldeamtsdaten etc.). Zentraler technischer Baustein ist dabei eine Kombination aus Datenhaltung, WebGIS und einfacher Administrationskomponente um die Daten und Werkzeuge durch die Administratoren des jeweiligen Landkreises und beteiligter Fachplaner der Kreise und der Kommunen verwalten zu können. Mit diesen Werkzeugen ist es den Kommunen und Landkreisen möglich wichtige Planungs- und Entscheidungsgrundlagen aus den vorhandenen Daten verschiedenster Ebenen für ihre Arbeit zu nutzen. Durch Erfassungswerkzeuge, z.B. für Potentialflächen, können auch Daten von Kommunen gepflegt werden ohne eigene Software zu beschaffen. Durch den Charakter der zentralen Datenhaltung und Visualisierung über WebGIS Technologie wird ein einheitlicher Datenbestand und Darstellungsregeln gewährleistet, die als Baustein für eine smarte Region anzusehen sind
Acoustic Quality and Health in Urban Environments – The SALVE Project
Get PDFBackground sounds of urban regions have been a concern of architecture and construction engineering for years. In the context of health research however, sound has been restricted to the health risk factor noise, thus reduced to sound decibel levels. Accordingly, noise mitigation measures aim exclusively at the reduction of noise level below a certain threshold. Soundscapes on the other hand, comprise all acoustic events of the natural, physical and human environment, which are determined by sound level, frequency, time and space. Soundscape Ecology which includes the study of spatio-temporal heterogeneity of sounds in different landscapes, provides a suitable methodical approach to analyse the relationships between soundscapes, the built environment and human health. This paper presents SALVE (Acoustic Quality and Health in Urban Environments), a two year interdisciplinary pilot project that started in October 2018 and involves the disciplines of public health and spatial planning. The project aims at the identification of criteria for health-promoting soundscapes in cities. By making year long direct and automated auditory measurements of a robust landuse sample in the city of Bochum, located in the highly urbanized Ruhr Area of Germany, one of the largest multi-seasonal urban soundscape datasets will be generated. These data will be merged with health data from the longitudinal, population-based Heinz Nixdorf Recall (HNR) study. Spatio-statistical models will be further developed to analyse health effects of different types of soundscapes in urban neighborhoods. The project serves as a starting point for an innovative and comprehensive approach to understanding the effects of sound quality on urban public health beyond noise protection. Additionally, knowledge will be gained for the development of solution based health-promoting strategies in spatial planning
From Festivalisation of Public Space to the Right to Public Space: Deconstructing Social Infrastructure as a Conceptual Framework for the Town Hall Square in Vienna
Get PDFIn our globalised, interconnected and increasingly competitive world, the importance of public space is often highlighted. This article aims at connecting public space to the concept of social infrastructure to point to the underlying and indispensable nature of public space. It builds on the assumption that public space is the physical manifestation of the interconnection between global urban processes and local tendencies where dynamics of festivalisation and restricted access are on the rise. The town hall square in Vienna and its seasonal use for different festivals and events serves as the empirical case. The square, situated in the centre of the city, shows powerful dynamics within the production of public space and gives interesting insights into the prevalent global and local tendencies of urban politics.A two-step approach towards the deconstruction of social infrastructure for the conception of public space is adopted. Using the notion of social infrastructure permits to connect public space as a product – as a physical place and organisational structure, which allows people to interact– to its process – its interpretative context, where meaning and value are assigned through the material context. The notion of the right to the city is applied to formulate an alternative approach to the right to public space. This constitutes a multi-dimensional approach, which is necessary to grasp the multiplicity of perspectives and complexity of issues manifesting themselves in public space. The aim of the paper is to understand how representational public space is used and which role the understanding of the right to the city plays in reclaiming public space as a form of social infrastructure