Assessing Spatial Configurations and Transport Energy Usage for Planning Sustainable Communities

Remco de Koning, Wendy Guan Zhen Tan, A. van Nes

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
32 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Energy usage in cities is intertwined with its spatial configuration—the denser and more compact the city, the more concentrated and efficient the energy usage is to be expected. To achieve sustainable communities, cities (and their inhabitants) must reconsider its spatial configurations in the context of rapid urbanisation and growth in light of limited resources and conflicting spatial claims. This article seeks to understand how spatial configurations affect transport energy usage in cities and propose an integrated assessment approach factoring spatial configurational analysis in relation to transport energy usage at the micro- and macroscale. Comparing Bergen, Norway, and Zürich, Switzerland, findings showed that spatial configurations were positively correlated to transport energy usage. Street structures suitable for walking and less suitable for car traffic tended to exhibit lower amounts of energy usage. Following this, nine typologies of transport and land use patterns are described to support planning for more sustainable means of transport.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8146
Number of pages23
JournalSustainability
Volume12
Issue number19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • Natural movement
  • Natural urban transformation
  • Space syntax
  • Sustainable mobility
  • Transport energy usage

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Assessing Spatial Configurations and Transport Energy Usage for Planning Sustainable Communities'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this