Car sharing in Wellington, New Zealand: Benefits and barriers

<p>Sprawling urban development and high levels of car dependency in New Zealand have resulted in a range of adverse impacts, including increased greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Car sharing can support compact development and sustainable transport patterns by providing a potential alternative to car ownership. Despite the increasing popularity of car sharing overseas, it is still in the early stages of development in New Zealand. There is a growing body of international literature about car sharing; however, very little has been written about car sharing in the New Zealand context. This thesis contributes to the literature by exploring car sharing in Wellington. This study has adopted a mixed method approach, surveying Wellington residents about car sharing and interviewing car share stakeholders. The findings from this research indicate that car sharing is a transport innovation which offers Wellington significant benefits. Perhaps most importantly, car sharing can reduce car ownership and usage, which in turn can help reduce congestion, demand for parking and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, this study provides evidence that the people most interested in car sharing in Wellington have similar characteristics to car share members overseas. This includes younger people, apartment dwellers, households without children, and people who use a car occasionally but do not necessarily own one. This thesis also highlights that car sharing is complementary to alternative modes of transport, and underlines the close connection between car sharing and modern technologies such as automated booking. The findings from this research indicate that car share providers face a range of barriers, including access to public parking and financial assistance. Progress has already been made to remove barriers facing car sharing but more support for car sharing could allow Wellington to take full advantage of its benefits.</p>

Car sharing in Wellington, New Zealand: Benefits and barriers

<p>Sprawling urban development and high levels of car dependency in New Zealand have resulted in a range of adverse impacts, including increased greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Car sharing can support compact development and sustainable transport patterns by providing a potential alternative to car ownership. Despite the increasing popularity of car sharing overseas, it is still in the early stages of development in New Zealand. There is a growing body of international literature about car sharing; however, very little has been written about car sharing in the New Zealand context. This thesis contributes to the literature by exploring car sharing in Wellington. This study has adopted a mixed method approach, surveying Wellington residents about car sharing and interviewing car share stakeholders. The findings from this research indicate that car sharing is a transport innovation which offers Wellington significant benefits. Perhaps most importantly, car sharing can reduce car ownership and usage, which in turn can help reduce congestion, demand for parking and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, this study provides evidence that the people most interested in car sharing in Wellington have similar characteristics to car share members overseas. This includes younger people, apartment dwellers, households without children, and people who use a car occasionally but do not necessarily own one. This thesis also highlights that car sharing is complementary to alternative modes of transport, and underlines the close connection between car sharing and modern technologies such as automated booking. The findings from this research indicate that car share providers face a range of barriers, including access to public parking and financial assistance. Progress has already been made to remove barriers facing car sharing but more support for car sharing could allow Wellington to take full advantage of its benefits.</p>

A Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise Lost? The Role of Preferences and Planning in Achieving Urban Sustainability in Wellington, New Zealand

<p>This thesis investigates the scope for compact development to accommodate population growth in Wellington, New Zealand. The topic is particularly significant for New Zealand as the great majority of the population lives in urban areas, historical development has been dominated by low density urban form, and transport and urban form are two of the main domains in which the country can reduce its carbon emissions. The influence of urban planning and residents’ preferences on achieving sustainable outcomes is investigated. Historical and current planning rules and transport policies in the City are analysed to determine their influence on the provision of compact development. Wellington’s transport policy shows a pattern of path dependency: historical decisions to favour car oriented investment have driven subsequent transport investments and influenced the ease of using different transport modes. Planning policies show a similar pattern of path dependency: planning rules enacted in the 1960s endure in present planning despite being packaged with different justifications and regulatory regime. Current planning rules severely restrict infill development in most existing neighbourhoods, which reduces the availability of housing in accessible medium density neighbourhoods and likely increases the cost of this type of housing. A stated choice survey was conducted of 454 residents of Wellington City to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. The survey held presentation mode constant across two completion modes (internet and door to door with tablet completion), allowing the impacts of recruitment and completion mode to be examined. Survey recruitment mode appeared to influence both response rates and the representativeness of the survey, while completion mode appeared to have little or no impact on survey responses. Using the stated choice survey results, a latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of residents and the trade-offs they are willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for the identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the diversity of preferences across the population. The study found that there is an unmet demand for medium density, accessible housing, but that affordability is a barrier for households to choose this type of housing. There was also an unmet demand for walking and cycling, with more residents currently driving than would prefer to use this mode, and more residents preferring to walk and cycle to work than currently use these modes. The ability to use a desired travel mode appears to be related to the neighbourhood in which a person lives, with residents of medium and high density neighbourhoods being more likely to use their preferred travel mode. This study also modelled future development trajectories for Wellington based on demand for housing, neighbourhood and transport attributes. This preference based growth model was contrasted with the City’s plan for development over the next 30 years. Comparing the two scenarios, the planning based trajectory performed better than the demand based scenario in terms of both carbon emissions and achieving compact development.</p>

A Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise Lost? The Role of Preferences and Planning in Achieving Urban Sustainability in Wellington, New Zealand

<p>This thesis investigates the scope for compact development to accommodate population growth in Wellington, New Zealand. The topic is particularly significant for New Zealand as the great majority of the population lives in urban areas, historical development has been dominated by low density urban form, and transport and urban form are two of the main domains in which the country can reduce its carbon emissions. The influence of urban planning and residents’ preferences on achieving sustainable outcomes is investigated. Historical and current planning rules and transport policies in the City are analysed to determine their influence on the provision of compact development. Wellington’s transport policy shows a pattern of path dependency: historical decisions to favour car oriented investment have driven subsequent transport investments and influenced the ease of using different transport modes. Planning policies show a similar pattern of path dependency: planning rules enacted in the 1960s endure in present planning despite being packaged with different justifications and regulatory regime. Current planning rules severely restrict infill development in most existing neighbourhoods, which reduces the availability of housing in accessible medium density neighbourhoods and likely increases the cost of this type of housing. A stated choice survey was conducted of 454 residents of Wellington City to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. The survey held presentation mode constant across two completion modes (internet and door to door with tablet completion), allowing the impacts of recruitment and completion mode to be examined. Survey recruitment mode appeared to influence both response rates and the representativeness of the survey, while completion mode appeared to have little or no impact on survey responses. Using the stated choice survey results, a latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of residents and the trade-offs they are willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for the identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the diversity of preferences across the population. The study found that there is an unmet demand for medium density, accessible housing, but that affordability is a barrier for households to choose this type of housing. There was also an unmet demand for walking and cycling, with more residents currently driving than would prefer to use this mode, and more residents preferring to walk and cycle to work than currently use these modes. The ability to use a desired travel mode appears to be related to the neighbourhood in which a person lives, with residents of medium and high density neighbourhoods being more likely to use their preferred travel mode. This study also modelled future development trajectories for Wellington based on demand for housing, neighbourhood and transport attributes. This preference based growth model was contrasted with the City’s plan for development over the next 30 years. Comparing the two scenarios, the planning based trajectory performed better than the demand based scenario in terms of both carbon emissions and achieving compact development.</p>

Planning Institutions and Urban Spatial Patterns: Evidence from a Cross-National Analysis

This paper examines how national planning frameworks differ from each other and how those differences relate to patterns of urban development using an international cross section of metropolitan regions. We construct a composite index to measure institutional planning frameworks through objective criteria—restrictive versus permissive; binding versus nonbinding; nationally versus locally oriented—that enables comparison between (not within) countries. We also estimate a series of models to evaluate the relationship between institutional frameworks and patterns. The evidence suggests that a more centralized and coordinated planning framework produces more compact development, whereas a more decentralized and uncoordinated planning framework results in less compact development.

Spatial dynamics model of land use and land cover changes: A comparison of CA, ANN, and ANN-CA

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes through built-up area expansion always increases linearly with land demand as a consequence of population growth and urbanization. Cirebon City is a center for Ciayumajakuning Region that continues to grow and exceeds its administrative boundaries. This phenomenon has led to peri-urban regions which show urban and rural interactions. This study aims to analyze (1) the dynamics of LULC changes using cellular automata (CA), artificial neural network (ANN), and ANN-CA; (2) the influential factors (drivers); and (3) change probability in the period 2030 and 2045 for Cirebon’s peri-urban. We used logistic regression as quantitative approach to analyze the interaction of drivers and LULC changes. The LULC data derived from Landsat series satellite imagery in 1999-2009 and 2009-2019, validation of dynamic spatial model refers to 100 LULC samples. This research shows that LULC changes are dominated by built-up area expansion which causes plantations and agricultural land to decrease. The drivers have a simultaneous effect on LULC changes with r-square of 0.43, where land slope, distance from existing built-up area, distance from CBD, and accessibility are significant triggers. LULC simulation of CA algorithm is the best model than ANN and ANN-CA based on overall accuracy and overall accuracy (0.96, 0.75, 0.73 and 0.95, 0.66, 0.66 respectively), it reveals urban sprawl through the ribbon and compact development. The average probability of built-up area expansion is 0.18 (2030) and 0.19 (2045). If there is no intervention in spatial planning, this phenomenon will decrease productive agricultural lands in Cirebon's peri-urban.

Urban access across the globe: an international comparison of different transport modes

Access (the ease of reaching valued destinations) is underpinned by land use and transport infrastructure. The importance of access in transport, sustainability, and urban economics is increasingly recognized. In particular, access provides a universal unit of measurement to examine cities for the efficiency of transport and land-use systems. This paper examines the relationship between population-weighted access and metropolitan population in global metropolitan areas (cities) using 30-min cumulative access to jobs for 4 different modes of transport; 117 cities from 16 countries and 6 continents are included. Sprawling development with the intensive road network in American cities produces modest automobile access relative to their sizes, but American cities lag behind globally in transit and walking access; Australian and Canadian cities have lower automobile access, but better transit access than American cities; combining compact development with an intensive network produces the highest access in Chinese and European cities for their sizes. Hence density and mobility co-produce better access. This paper finds access to jobs increases with populations sublinearly, so doubling the metropolitan population results in less than double access to jobs. The relationship between population and access characterizes regions, countries, and cities, and significant similarities exist between cities from the same country.

Is Compact Urban Form Good for Air Quality? A Case Study from China Based on Hourly Smartphone Data

In previous studies, planners have debated extensively whether compact development can improve air quality in urban areas. Most of them estimated pollution exposure with stationary census data that linked exposures solely to residential locations, therefore overlooking residents’ space–time inhalation of air pollutants. In this study, we conducted an air pollution exposure assessment by scrutinizing one-hour resolution population distribution maps derived from hourly smartphone data and air pollutant concentrations derived from inverse distance weighted interpolation. We selected Wuhan as the study area and used Pearson correlation analysis to explore the effect of compactness on population-weighted concentrations. The results showed that even if a compact urban form helps to reduce pollution concentrations by decreasing vehicle traveling miles and tailpipe emissions, higher levels of building density and floor area ratios may increase population-weighted exposure. With regard to downtown areas with high population density, compact development may locate more people in areas with excessive air pollution. In all, reducing density in urban public centers and developing a polycentric urban structure may aid in the improvement of air quality in cities with compact urban forms.