Urban modeling for enhancing master plan making: SIMPLAN for Ahmedabad, India

Lecture | June 8 | 12-1 p.m. | 316D Wurster Hall

Speaker/Performer: Dr. Bhargav Adhvaryu, Professor in Infrastructure Engineering & Management, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India, Fulbright Visiting Professor at the UCLA Department of Urban Planning

Sponsor: Institute of Urban and Regional Development

Planners are usually faced with the decision of what planning policy to pursue in order to achieve the best possible future! Using modelsthat simulate urban dynamics, it is possible to test and assessalternative planning policies, thereby making the decision processmore objective and transparent. Examples are the full-fledged and complex land use—transport interaction models, which have been successfully applied in many cities of the developed world,demonstrating its effective use in assessing alternative planning andtransport policies before finalizing their master plan. However, in the developing world, building such complex models is challengingdue to lack of data availability and resource constraints. Addressingsuch constraints, a SIMplified PLANning modeling suite calledSIMPLAN has been developed for the case study city of Ahmedabad, India. SIMPLAN is built using available census andsome basic employment related sample survey data, and containsfour sub-modules for spatial trend analysis, residential location, modal split, and alternative policy assessment framework.

India is rapidly urbanizing and is at a crucial juncture in itsdevelopment. The urbanization phenomenon has both positive andnegative effects. It could be argued that appropriate urbandevelopment policies and planning methodology can use thepotential positives to foster better equity of benefits from thebooming overall growth. On the other hand, if India does notcapitalize on thepotential advantages appropriately, then in the next few decades the negatives of urbanization could amplify, worseningcity living and become a stumbling block in its economic growthstory. It is believed that using a methodological planning frameworksuch as SIMPLAN, cities in the developing world can prepare theirown tailor-made policy that best satisfies their objectives, making theplanning efforts count for improving the quality of life in cities.

Event Contact: eguerra@berkeley.edu, 510-423-1444