Risk of energy constrained Activity-transport systems (RECATS)

Abstract

A long-term strategic planning tool called RECATS© is introduced. It explores the link between urban form and susceptibility to fuel shortages in order to quantify a risk factor at a queried year in the future for a given urban form and travel demand configuration. RECATS includes interactive models for global peak in oil production, development scenarios for alternative or bio-fuels, and fuel rationing or supply management. On the transport side, RECATS allows the user to specify the distance, mode, and frequency matrix which has been determined for a given urban form using standard transport modelling. RECATS was applied to a case study in which four different urban development forms for Christchurch, New Zealand were simulated. Results show that all urban forms would lose and/or change trips according to the land use-transport system configuration options, but the risk to activities would be very different for different future cities.