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Assessing land-use and transport integration via a spatial composite indexing model

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Abstract

Achieving sustainable urban development is identified as one ultimate goal of many contemporary planning endeavours and has become central to formulation of urban planning policies. Within this concept, land-use and transport integration is highlighted as one of the most important and attainable policy objectives. In many cities, integration is embraced as an integral part of local development plans, and a number of key integration principles are identified. However, the lack of available evaluation methods to measure extent of urban sustainability levels prevents successful implementation of these principles. This paper introduces a new indicator-based spatial composite indexing model developed to measure sustainability performance of urban settings by taking into account land-use and transport integration principles. Model indicators are chosen via a thorough selection process in line with key principles of land-use and transport integration. These indicators are grouped into categories and themes according to their topical relevance. These indicators are then aggregated to form a spatial composite index to portray an overview of the sustainability performance of the pilot study area used for model demonstration. The study results revealed that the model is a practical instrument for evaluating success of local integration policies and visualizing sustainability performance of built environments and useful in both identifying problematic areas as well as formulating policy interventions.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is an outcome of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (ARC-LP0882637), jointly funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, Gold Coast City Council, Queensland Transport and Main Roads and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the project partners and research team, expert panel, and the financial support of QUT, School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment and Academic Strategic Transport Research Alliance (ASTRA). We also acknowledge and cordially thank the editor and four anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and insightful suggestions, which helped us to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment and Sustainability Branch, Logan City Council, PO Box 3226, Logan City, QLD, 4114, Australia

    F. Dur

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

    T. Yigitcanlar

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  1. F. Dur
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  2. T. Yigitcanlar
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Correspondence to T. Yigitcanlar.

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Dur, F., Yigitcanlar, T. Assessing land-use and transport integration via a spatial composite indexing model. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 12, 803–816 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-013-0476-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-013-0476-9

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