Geography, Urban and Regional Planning

El fenómeno de la dispersión urbana, ampliamente estudiado en las ciudades americanas, está modificando el modelo de ocupación del suelo también en las ciudades españolas. La construcción de vías de gran capacidad junto con el aumento de la motorización y las nuevas pautas de consumo han propiciado que ciudades tradicionalmente compactas hayan experimentado un crecimiento disperso, que a la larga resulta ser poco sostenible. Desde los primeros estudios sobre la problemática derivada del sprawl se han ido configurando argumentos a favor y en contra de las ciudades compactas. Más recientemente se están considerando los sistemas policéntricos (decentralised concentration) como estructuras que potencialmente pueden reducir los inconvenientes del exceso de dispersión o de concentración. Esta comunicación tiene dos objetivos básicos: por un lado, diseccionar, desde un punto de vista teórico, los problemas actuales derivados de la configuración de los sistemas urbanos; y por otro lado, analizar un caso concreto y proponer estrategias de planificación que optimicen el uso del suelo urbano. En primer lugar se analizan por separado las ventajas e inconvenientes de los sistemas urbanos en los que, siendo híbridos de los tres modelos, domina una estructura dispersa, compacta o policéntrica. Una vez establecido el marco descriptivo y de interacción de estos modelos, se estudia su aplicación a la Comunidad Autónoma de Cantabria, actualmente inmersa en el proceso de redacción del Plan de Ordenación Territorial. Esta aplicación consiste en un análisis comparativo de la jerarquía urbana de Cantabria elaborado a partir de servicios supramunicipales representativos y volumen de centros de trabajo de las entidades de población, y de las relaciones de dependencia entre municipios para acceder al comercio y servicios. La comparación entre estos dos grupos de variables (capacidad real vs. funciones reales) se ha hecho a partir del índice de Nelson, y los resultados han servido para proponer los núcleos y relaciones que se deben potenciar en Cantabria con el objetivo de reequilibrar el sistema territorial y romper la progresiva tendencia de 'litoralización' de la población y actividades. Posteriormente, se definen los objetivos de distribución espacial a los que deben responder las estrategias de planificación para lograr una mayor sostenibilidad territorial. Evidentemente, estos objetivos variarán en función del tipo de área de que se trate (con alto nivel de desarrollo, periférica, etc.), de la dimensión y escala del ámbito de estudio, y también de sus particularidades locales. Para fortalecer determinados núcleos y relaciones de la red urbana de Cantabria, en la parte final de la comunicación se plantean medidas que, basadas en la situación actual, fomenten la integración de las políticas de transporte, de planificación urbanística y de ordenación del territorio, que deben basarse en la coordinación y cooperación administrativa y de los agentes sociales, y en la definición de estrategias a medio y largo plazo.

Las carreteras generan un impacto territorial que se manifiesta en cambios en los usos del suelo y afecta en mayor medida a los ámbitos en los que el incremento de la accesibilidad es mayor. Esta relación entre transporte y usos del suelo implica que las vías de gran capacidad son un elemento capaz de favorecer o limitar el desarrollo de un área, dependiendo también de la situación socioeconómica y de otros factores. En las áreas periféricas, frecuentemente polarizadas, una nueva vía modifica los usos del suelo, sobretodo en las áreas periurbanas más accesibles, hecho que ha de ser tenido en cuenta en la coordinación de las políticas de planificación urbana/territorial y de transporte. La cuantificación de este proceso se ha visto facilitada en los últimos años por la profusión de fuentes de información cada vez más precisas y elaboradas, lo que permite seguir avanzando en las técnicas de análisis. En esta comunicación, tras una breve introducción al impacto territorial y su relación con las infraestructuras de transporte, se estudiarán las ventajas e inconvenientes de las fuentes de información y se recomendarán aquellos tipos de operaciones SIG que facilitan su análisis y la comparación de resultados.

Abstract: This paper describes how land use and transport measures are applied within integrated policies so as to improve sustainability and regional cohesion in peripheral areas. This paper has its origin in the research project entitled “Development of a method of ...

RESUMEN En este artículo se exponen la metodología y principales resultados del proyecto “Análisis y Gestión del Patrimonio Regional de Suelo”, encargado por la Consejería de Obras Públicas y Vivienda del Gobierno de Cantabria con la finalidad de ...

The land use and transport relationship has been largely discussed in both directions. Most empirical research projects have taken metropolitan and central areas as case study areas, where more and more transport infrastructures have been built and where transport management is now the key issue to satisfy travel demand. In fact, there is a general agreement that transport infrastructure shape land use patterns, but they do not necessarily generate an increased rate of development. Peripheral areas within developed countries share some trends, although at a different scale and intensity, with central areas, such as sprawl processes, but they also have some particularities, namely large spatial imbalances, low development and accessibility rates and so on. Consequently, they require an independent approach both in the analysis phase (because of the different behaviour of variables throughout the territory) and in the policy suggestion phase (because of spatial dissimilarities, weaker...

como son el desarrollo sostenible y los sistemas de evaluación y seguimiento. Sin embargo, en España, a diferencia de otros países que cuentan con directrices o guías nacionales, esta inclusión no se ha realizado de manera sistemática. Este artículo tiene como objetivo comprobar hasta qué punto y cómo se está integrando la evaluación y seguimiento de los planes territoriales españoles prestando especial atención al uso de sistemas de indicadores. La revisión de los planes actuales permite afirmar que

The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) into cities may fundamentally transform the design and use of cities. On one hand, AVs offer the potential to reduce the urban space requirements for roads and parking, creating more space for high-quality, liveable areas. On the other hand, greater motorisation and the availability to perform leisure or work activities while travelling in AVs could increase the number of trips and travel distances, encouraging urban traffic congestion and sprawl. These diverse, and sometimes conflicting, estimates and opinions give rise to considerable uncertainty among urban policy decision-makers, sometimes leading to planning inaction. This paper aims to shed light on the opportunities that AVs offer in delivering attractive, healthy and sustainable urbanisation patterns. This paper employs a backcasting approach to investigate whether and how the potential impacts of AV implementation can support or threaten a range of urban development policy goals. This approach enables conflicts between policy goals to be identified. The findings point to the need for mixed-use development policy, the clustering of urban facilities and services, the restriction of motorized access in cities and the adoption of shared high-quality multimodal transport.

Knowing public transport service’s user satisfaction is essential to maintaining and increasing its quality and demand. Several studies have analysed the factors influencing users’ satisfaction, considering their perceptions of specific attributes of the service. However, other aspects, such as the spatial distribution of users, i.e., their origin neighbourhoods, could significantly affect their satisfaction with the service, showing social inequity patterns. This paper proposes a new methodology to evaluate whether these spatial differences in satisfaction exist. Using the city of Santander (Spain) as an example, ordered probit models have been estimated, linking the bus users’ overall satisfaction with variables that include their perceptions of the service and socio-demographic characteristics, and with dummy variables which classify each trip according to its neighbourhood origin. Our results confirm the existence of variations in satisfaction depending on the area of the city u...

Territorial cohesion has become one of the main objectives in transport planning. This has fostered the development of assessment methodologies to quantitatively estimate the territorial impact of major transport infrastructures, which are particularly scarce at the intra-regional level. Linked to cohesion, polycentricity has been defined as the best spatial configuration to achieve balanced regions where population and opportunities are distributed among several entities linked by functional relationships. This paper aims to present a methodology to estimate these impacts based on the use of a new regional composite polycentricity indicator. The proposed indicator is tested by comparing the effects of conventional and high-speed railway (HSR) alternatives in the territorial system of a northern region of Spain. This quantitative assessment is a ranking tool for prioritizing rail network alternatives in terms of achieving the most balanced territory, which is especially relevant in countries where HSR networks follow cohesion goals. Our results show that new HSR links should only be complementary to regional railway services, and that the suppression of secondary lines should be avoided if a reduction in polarization is to be achieved.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can generate major changes in urban systems due to their ability to use road infrastructures more efficiently and shorten trip times. However, there is great uncertainty about these effects and about whether the use of these vehicles will continue to be private, in continuity with the current paradigm, or whether they will become shared (carsharing/ridesharing). In order to try to shed light on these matters, the use of a scenario-based methodology and the evaluation of the scenarios using a land use–transport interaction model (LUTI model TRANSPACE) is proposed. This model allows simulating the impacts that changes in the transport system can generate on the location of households and companies oriented to local demand and accessibility conditions. The obtained results allow us to state that, if AVs would generate a significant increase in the capacity of urban and interurban road infrastructures, the impacts on mobility and on the location of activities c...

The advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has the potential to drastically change society and the way we understand, plan and design cities and regions, just as automobiles did a century ago. In the current context of climate change, sustainable urban environments based on active mobility (walking and cycling), urban proximity and green spaces, are increasingly in demand, leading to the emergence of new interventions and urban models. Although these trends may be affected by the arrival of AVs, most decision-makers and planners still do not address these issues in their current planning. This is because of the confusion associated with the diversity of impacts of AVs, but also by the lack of design recommendations and planning tools. To shed light on these aspects, this paper reviews the relationship between mobility and urban public space, the impacts of AVs on urban space and design proposals and strategies aimed at configuring driverless cities, with special focus on street design....

Plantation forestry has been widely used for industrial purposes, creating vast extensions of culture forests. Although these plantations have a primary economic goal, they may indirectly serve other functions, such as landscape connectivity. Eucalypts are among the main plantation species used worldwide. In those areas in which they are not native, eucalyptus have been regarded as pernicious species for autochthonous forest and forest dwelling fauna. However, they may enhance connectivity between natural forest patches, thus favouring faunal dispersal. In Cantabria (Spain), Eucalyptus globulus were extensively planted in deforested areas mainly occupied by bushes and meadows. Here, we examine whether their massive introduction has modified landscape connectivity in the region. We used two indices based on graph theory and on the habitat availability concept (Integral Index of Connectivity and Probability of Connectivity), and applied them to the current forest network. Our results show how eucalyptus afforestation, principally based on temporary woodlands, has not improved forest connectivity in Cantabria significantly, though in the coast some of the new plantation areas may be locally important. Specific management actions targeted at these particularly relevant patches may enhance faunal dispersal and thus maintain biodiversity by reducing the fragmentation of these highly humanized areas.

The possible future introduction of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) raises questions about how they might affect the demand for transport and especially modal choice. In this research, a stated preference (SP) survey and a modelling process using Mixed Logit are proposed to simulate the future market share of AVs/SAVs and how their introduction into the system could change the modal choice, especially in relation to active and public transport modes. An efficient SP survey design has been developed based on the state-of-the-art information and carried out in 2020 among citizens of two medium-sized Southern European cities within a car-intensive region. The design considered different trip purposes (compulsory, leisure), different trip distances, and attributes not taken into account before, such as comfort and the physical characteristics of the terrain for the active modes. The model results suggest that AVs and SAVs were the preferred transport mode...

The advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) may directly affect current trends in sustainable urbanism based on recovering the urban space for people, active mobility (walking and cycling) and chrono-urbanism. How will AVs affect the urban space and the mobility? How will they change the strategies of street and public space design? are relevant questions that need to be answered to prevent AVs ruling the city as the car has done. Decisions such as setting urban goals and planning ahead and encouraging shared used over ownership, will be crucial in guiding the AVs implementation and achieving the most desirable cities.