Urban vans,e-commerce and road freight transport

Abstract

A city will typically depend on at least 150 supply chains and freight is a key part of them. This article aims to explore at the qualitative and qualitative level (1) how e-commerce drives both travel and urban freight transport and (2) to estimate how various manufacturing activities determine the stability of demand for freight transport. The article provides elasticity estimates on (1) the demand for road freight transport for five industry sectors using a time series framework; data on GDP (gross value added) and on fuel costs per t-km (tonne-km). A key finding is that e-commerce induces freight traffic, by vans, but the decline in freight intensity of the economy is only temporary since urban economic activity contributes to growth of freight. Our analysis of five manufacturing sectors confirms that cyclical sectors are more sensitive to energy price gyrations over time than non-cyclical sectors. Price elasticities are high but comparable to other studies. The income elasticity of freight transport is large for the five sectors, but the high heterogeneity of freight sectors means that predicting this activity is challenging. It is observed that truck freight intensity (km of trucks per GVA) declines but not enough to offset the rise in energy needed to fuel the entire freight transport sector; it is likely that the rise in van freight increases the demand for freight energy in urban regions.     

Municipal Budget Management and the Generation of Urban Sprawl. A Case Study of the Lombardy Region (Italy)

ABSTRACT

The paper describes one of the Italian sprawl drivers: the circle triggered by the use of urban charges to solve budget problems. From 2005 to 2018, Italian municipalities could use urban charges to solve normal budget problems: they could plan new urban areas to provide new urban charges, new building and services, and they could manage old and new services at the expense of normal budget. The planning of unnecessary urban areas was effectively influenced by budget problems. The paper illustrates this issue during a period without open data sources in order to improve land management and environmental sustainability.     

Integrated Education for Resilient Urban Adaptation: Wildfire Risk Reduction in Australia

Abstract

Urban and regional planning education seeks, often through highly applied teaching, to develop students’ abilities allowing them to work meaningfully on emergent urban and regional issues. However, it is relatively uncommon that education itself develops alongside government policy and research agendas. This paper documents the development of a new tertiary wildfire management qualification prepared in partnership with planning and building agencies after the devastating 2009 Victorian wildfires. It is argued that the process of developing educational outcomes in this case paralleled an interactive and ongoing agenda of research, policy development and education that represents adaptive-ness facilitating resilience as learning and institutional change.     

Comparing Spatial Planning Systems and Planning Cultures in Europe. The Need for a Multi-scalar Approach

Abstract

The article argues that in order to understand changes in planning systems and planning cultures in Europe, there is need to adopt a multi-scalar approach with different entry points of analysis. This should give emphasis to the overlooked aspects of actor constellation, knowledge and policy styles. Without neglecting the importance of institutional and legal contexts of spatial planning the comparative analysis should focus on the changes emerging in actor arenas, at different scales of planning practices (project/local, city, regional, cross/border and the national level). Furthermore, the cultural features of planning, the different steering styles and the norms, values, belief systems, visions and frames of the actors involved in the planning process are significant. Adiachronic historical analysis is needed in order to compare changes of planning systems and cultures between different places.     

Collaboration with Caveats: Research–Practice Exchange in Planning

Abstract

Researcher and practitioner collaboration in urban planning is both critical to good outcomes and problematic to achieve in reality. Collaboration has the potential for new partnerships, better research problem definition, improved research design and greater impact on practice and policy. However, politics, stakeholder agendas and funding bodies bring pressures and constraints, for which research professionals require a broader set of skills to manage. We examine researcher–practitioner collaboration as part of an action research project on urban greening in Australia. Focusing on a stakeholder engagement workshop, we examine the mechanisms used to overcome barriers to research-practice exchange. We find overt consideration of common barriers to access and use of research when planning collaboration exercises can help facilitate more productive engagement, creating spaces for mutual understanding and generating shared objectives. However, we also find that efforts at collaboration challenge traditional research practices, involve tensions and caveats, and require a different mode of researcher engagement.     

Best Practices and Policy Transfer in Spatial Planning

Abstract

Numerous European programs and initiatives have been instrumental in identifying a large and increasing number of examples of best practice (or good practice) in the field of spatial planning. In fact, there is now a profligacy of best practice, which means that many researchers and policy-makers are often confronted with too much information when trying to identify examples of policy and practice in other places. The identification and dissemination of best practices has become a growing industry in many areas of European policy, including spatial planning and urban environmental issues. In many cases, an underlying assumption of best practices is that they are equally applicable and effective in another setting, and that the development and dissemination of best practice will help to lead to improvements in policy and practice in other countries, regions or cities. However, the reality is that best practices have a more limited role in policy-making processes: other influences are frequently more important. The value of exchanging European best practices is limited since there are huge differences in the economic, political or social situation between countries in the European Union. This is particularly true when considering the transfer of best practices between ‘new’ and ‘old’ member states, where the social and economic situation, as well as the institutional frameworks, are often very different in ‘borrowing’ and ‘lending’ countries.     

Multi-site aggregate production planning with multiple objectives: A goal programming approach

This paper addresses the problem of aggregate production planning (APP) for a multinational lingerie company in Hong Kong. The multi-site production planning problem considers the production loading plans among manufacturing factories subject to certain restrictions, such as production import/export quotas imposed by regulatory requirements of different nations, the use of manufacturing factories/locations with regard to customers' preferences, as well as production capacity, workforce level, storage space and resource conditions of the factories. In this paper, a multi-objective model is developed to solve the production planning problems, in which the profit is maximized but production penalties resulting from going over/under quotas and the change in workforce level are minimized. To enhance the practical implications of the proposed model, different managerial production loading plans are evaluated according to changes in future policy and situation. Numerical results demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of the developed model.     

What is a Healthy Sustainable Built Environment? Developing Evidence-Based Healthy Built Environment Indicators for Policy-Makers and Practitioners

Abstract

Healthy built environments place people and communities at the heart of urban planning, encouraging decision-making based on human health, well-being and environmental sustainability. This paper describes the development of a set of indicators to assist in this endeavour—by translating and linking the research evidence base with policy-makers and other practitioners. The paper describes how the indicators were chosen, contextualized and subsequently structured to maximize useability for urban planners and health professionals working together to improve community health and neighbourhood sustainability.     

Making Competitive Cities in the Light of the Meta-SWOT Tool: A Case Study of Tehran,Iran

ABSTRACT

While there is a growing body of scholarship on regional competitiveness, little attention has been paid to the planning methods that can pursue this objective. Public planners are mainly relying on conventional methods that have come under increasing criticism. This study aims to introduce Meta-SWOT as a novel planning tool in urban and regional studies. Meta-SWOT provides competitive and realistic strategies for planners. It systematically tries to present strategies rooted in internal resources and capabilities while acknowledging the challenges posed by the external environment. Nevertheless, it has several limitations that should be considered when applying to urban and regional planning.     

Genetic algorithm to production planning and scheduling problems for manufacturing systems

Fundamental and extended multi-objective (MO) models are designed to address earliness/tardiness production scheduling planning (ETPSP) problems with multi-process capacity balance, multi-product production and lot-size consideration. A canonical genetic algorithm (GA) approach and a prospective multi-objective GA (MOGA) approach are proposed as solutions for different practical problems. Simulation results as well as comparisons with other techniques demonstrate the effectiveness of the MOGA approach, which is a noted improvement to any of the existing techniques, and also in practice provides a new trend of integrating manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) with just-in-time (JIT) in the production planning procedure.     

Business drivers not sector membership determine the most effective production planning and control; a novel approach to a perennial problem

This paper outlines research aimed at developing novel planning and scheduling reference models for industrial sectors where the MRPII paradigm is not appropriate. It outlines the process mapping approach adopted, the data capture method developed for the case study companies, the use of ARIS (Scheer's) enterprise modelling tool, and the first stages in the production of sector reference models.     

城市土地利用规划的交通影响评价建模研究

本文提出了一种基于投入产出关系和连续逼近方法的城市土地利用的交通影响评价模型。作为城市土地可持续利用规划模型的一个子模型,本模型已在桂林市的总体规划中得以实施。在本文中,先简要介绍了城市土地可持续利用规模模型,接着基于投入产出关系估算了分行业的单位产值对应的货物运输量,然后以交通熵和交通周转量作为评价指标,基于投入产出关系、连续逼近方法和Huff商区模式分别建立了货物运输、居民工作出行和居民购物出行交通影响评价模型。     

Reviewing Implications of Urban Growth Management and Spatial Governance in the Global South

ABSTRACT

Urban containment policies have been applied in the global north as a strategy towards creating compact urban development. In the south the urban growth management discourse have been part of planning practice for the past three decades. There are however several reasons, both structural and political that have contributed to its limited success. The purpose of the research is to review practices of growth management in the south in an attempt to find lessons from the implementation of different mechanisms. The study focuses on the challenges of growth management mechanisms and its associated spatial governance approaches.     

Town planning in Sweden: National officials versus local politicians

With strong central government traditions, Sweden has developed goal-oriented normative planning. At urban level, such planning raises many problems. This article discusses some of these problems from the three principal aspects of planning, namely the ideological, methodological and organizational aspect. The study is based on an extensive questionnaire and oral interviews among municipal planners in leadership positions in three middle-sized municipalities, namely Borås, Umeå and Västerås. The ideological aspect is discussed with reference to restrictions on urban planning arising as a result of decisions made by private enterprises and due to the interaction between the central and municipal government. The article goes on to describe the methods planners have developed to plan for land-use, resource allocation, housing and other sectoral activities and major defects in the planning system. Finally, the article discusses various problems faced by the municipal government whose departmental organization facilitates the administration of community services but cannot adequately deal with the increasing number of planning functions which are often interdepartmental in nature.     

Experimental Coastal Land Reclamation: Qianhai as a Case Interpreted

ABSTRACT

Informed by a Coasian transaction cost paradigm enriched by the concept of Schumpeterian innovations, this paper discusses the advantages of using experimental coastal reclamation of the sea to build new cities with a policy for fostering innovations. A new development area at the margin of Shenzhen in China, Qianhai, is used to demonstrate how urban expansion by urban sprawling in a megacity can be avoided by reclamation of marginal land as analytically less costly than along intra-marginal land and more suitable for experimentation for the type of megacity concept that Qianhai aims to achieve.     

On deterministic production planning: a tutorial note

Abstract

Short-term single-product production planning problems with linear, convex or concave production cost functions can be solved using simple and intuitive structural rules. These rules provide pedagogical insights into some methods used for longer term problems.     

Social Learning in Transnational Spatial Planning Processes: An Analysis of the ‘V4+2’ Cooperation on Spatial Development

ABSTRACT

Social learning can offer a useful lens to analyse multi-actor cooperation processes and their outcomes. In this paper, a conceptual framework based on learning theories is applied to a recent transnational spatial planning process in Central Europe to analyse how the cooperation agenda was shaped, a joint strategy developed, and to understand the possible policy effects of this process. The findings allow a reflection on the potentials of, and challenges for, multi-actor cooperation on spatial planning in large regions covering several countries.     

Computational complexity of algorithms for MRP and JIT production planning problems in enterprise resource planning systems

An enterprise resource planning system (ERP) is the information backbone of many manufacturing companies. At the core of ERP is a conventional material requirements planning (MRP) production planning system or a variation of MRP when just-in-time (JIT) principles are used in manufacturing. MRP and JIT both organize production planning into a hierarchy of long-, medium- and short-range problems. In all there are eight different problems. Some are common to MRP and JIT, others are specialized for a particular system. This paper analyses the computational requirements of these problems. This is important for ERP because it plans for large numbers of products (e.g. 50 000 products at 3M Company and 44 000 products at States Industries in Oregon) at large numbers of locations (e.g. 82 locations in 21 countries for Visteon Automotive Systems of Michigan and 19 locations at Boeing). We show that adequate algorithms exist for some problems, but better algorithms are needed for other problems if ERP is to provide useful production plans.     

Some law enforcement operations implications of crime seasonality

Criminal justice system policy makers have recently begun to utilize sophisticated techniques of analysis to explore questions of resource allocation and program evaluation.^{1, 2, 6, 8, 10} All too often, however, the benefits of such techniques have been denied to the large proportion of criminal justice units which lack access to extensive computer facilities and large technical staffs. This paper illustrates how one important crime data time series property—seasonal variation— may be adjusted for and utilized with some fairly simple procedures. The police operations and planning implications of the presence of seasonality in crime data are then examined. The authors develop their discussion with reference to seasonal variation in monthly data on major crimes for a large United States urban area, Miami, Florida. The time period of the study is 1949–1972.     

What Future for Green Infrastructure Planning? Evaluating the Changing Environment for Green Infrastructure Planning Following the Revocation of Regional Planning Policy in England

ABSTRACT

The revocation of the regional tier of planning by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 removed the established framework of strategic planning in England. Using a case study of green infrastructure (GI), this paper examines whether revocation has negatively impacted the development of environmental, and specifically GI policies and practice. It questions if changing government policy narratives have hindered advocacy and subsequently the delivery of GI and the extent to which it has been able to position itself as a mainstream approach in planning. Using the development of the RSS in England, and the North-East and East of England sub-regional GI strategies (areas of significant policy development), as case studies, the paper presents an ex-ante evaluation prior to revocation of the evolution of GI policy at a regional scale, alongside an ex-post assessment (2011–2015) of its continued growth within sub-regional policies. The paper concludes that whilst RSSs provided a promotional forum, that revocation has not negatively impacted upon GI development, as its advocates have facilitated a supportive policy-implementation environment which has led to the development of more integrated approaches in planning praxis.