scholarly journals Simulating user learning in authoritative technology adoption: An agent based model for council-led smart meter deployment planning in the UK

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 74-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Zhang ◽  
Peer-Olaf Siebers ◽  
Uwe Aickelin
2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad H. Pakravan ◽  
Nordica MacCarty

Abstract Technology adoption in low-income regions is among the key challenges facing international development projects. Nearly 40% of the world's population relies on open fires and rudimentary cooking devices exacerbating health outcomes, deforestation, and climatic impacts of inefficient biomass burning. Clean technology alternatives such as clean cookstoves are among the most challenging technologies to approach their target goals through sustainable adoption due to a lack of systematic market-driven design for adoption. Thus, a method is needed to provide insight regarding how target customers evaluate and perceive causes for adopting a clean technology. The holistic approach of this study captures technology adoption through lenses of social networks, individual and society scale beliefs, and rational decision-making behavior. Based on the data collected in the Apac region in Northern Uganda, an agent-based model is developed to simulate emerging adoption behavior in a community. Then, four different scenarios investigate how adoption patterns change due to the potential changes in technology or intervention strategy. These scenarios include influence of stove malfunctions, price elasticity, information campaigns, and strength of a social network. Results suggest that higher adoption rates are achievable if designed technologies are more durable, information campaigns provide realistic expectations for users, policymakers, and education programs work toward women's empowerment, and communal social ties are recognized for influence maximization. The application of this study provides insight for technology designers, project implementers, and policymakers to update their practices for achieving sustainable and to the scale clean technology adoption rates.


Author(s):  
Rafa Baptista ◽  
Marc Hinterschweiger ◽  
Katie Low ◽  
Arzu Uluc

2019 ◽  
Vol 255 ◽  
pp. 113795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vassilis Stavrakas ◽  
Sotiris Papadelis ◽  
Alexandros Flamos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Gumble ◽  
Sarah Wise

New forms of mobility reshape the transportation landscape, changing movement for both their users and others in the environment. The transition period during which novel forms of travel are being explored can be a challenging time while the use of spaces must be renegotiated. E-scooters, which have recently been more widely introduced to the UK, are experiencing such a moment as riders, planners, and other users of the streetscape are determining what role this technology will play in communities. The data gaps surrounding e-scooters can make this an especially difficult question for planners because of the cost of gathering relevant observational data, much of which is held under private company ownership. In light of this, this work presents an agent-based model developed to examine the integration of e-scooters into existing streetscapes. Agent-based models explore phenomena through focusing on individual behaviour and rules which in turn gives rise to emergent large scale patterns. These patterns can be dissected and interrogated with a variety of tools, allowing us to tease out individual as well as group experiences of different scenarios. An agent-based approach allows us to capture the individual behaviours of e-scooter users and those of cyclists, drivers of variously sized vehicles, pedestrians, and others present in the environment. By focusing on the interactions of these various street users, we can explore how different approaches to e-scooter integration may fare relative to varying street configurations. Their decision frameworks are informed by observational studies of e-scooter users in order to augment the available data. We discuss the current state of understanding e-scooter behaviour and the potential modelling applications, present an initial behavioural framework of e-scooter decision making and inter-modal interactions, and highlight some preliminary results examining the differences between e-scooters operating on roads versus shared segregated cycle lanes. The work concludes with a case study comparing two modelled scenarios, one including a segregated cycle lane and one without. Drawing upon metrics such as the route segmentation/ cut-off rate and average travel comfort, we can more precisely explore how new forms of mobility will influence different kinds of street users in order to better understand the trade-offs associated with different paths forward.


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