Understanding the Co-emergence of Urban Location Choice and Mobility Patterns: Empirical Studies and an Integrated Geospatial and Agent-based Model
type: CreativeWork
description: Understanding and simulating the relationship between urban land-use configuration and patterns of human spatial interaction has been the subject of multi-disciplinary research. Conceptually, it is recognized that the location decisions of several urban actors including individuals, households, firms and public sector institutions, collectively determine the spatial distribution of land-use activities; the emergent land-use patterns, in turn, provide the structural conditions within which flows and interactions between locations occur daily and respond to each other over time. Over the past six decades, various theories and concepts from urban economics, social-physics, transportation studies, and the complexity sciences have underpinned empirical research and development of state-of-the-art simulation models to explore the land-use and travel nexus. Using a case study design and selecting the Kumasi Metropolis, a medium-size metropolis of nearly two-million inhabitants in Ghana, West Africa as the case study area, two main objectives, which reflect research trends and gaps in both the empirical literature and simulation model development have been addressed in this thesis. The first objective was to examine empirically, the location choice behaviour of households and individuals with respect to their residential and job locations, and the mobility patterns associated with the observed home-work location combinations within the metropolis. The second objective was to develop an integrated geospatial and agent-based model to simulate how the residential and job location choice behaviour of heterogeneous households and individuals co-emerge with mobility patterns in the metropolis. The empirical studies presented in this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of how location-defining attributes at multiple spatial-scales interact with socio-demographic attributes of heterogeneous households and individuals to determine their residential location choice, job loca…
abstract: Understanding and simulating the relationship between urban land-use configuration and patterns of human spatial interaction has been the subject of multi-disciplinary research. Conceptually, it is recognized that the location decisions of several urban actors including individuals, households, firms and public sector institutions, collectively determine the spatial distribution of land-use activities; the emergent land-use patterns, in turn, provide the structural conditions within which flows and interactions between locations occur daily and respond to each other over time. Over the past six decades, various theories and concepts from urban economics, social-physics, transportation studies, and the complexity sciences have underpinned empirical research and development of state-of-the-art simulation models to explore the land-use and travel nexus. Using a case study design and selecting the Kumasi Metropolis, a medium-size metropolis of nearly two-million inhabitants in Ghana, West Africa as the case study area, two main objectives, which reflect research trends and gaps in both the empirical literature and simulation model development have been addressed in this thesis. The first objective was to examine empirically, the location choice behaviour of households and individuals with respect to their residential and job locations, and the mobility patterns associated with the observed home-work location combinations within the metropolis. The second objective was to develop an integrated geospatial and agent-based model to simulate how the residential and job location choice behaviour of heterogeneous households and individuals co-emerge with mobility patterns in the metropolis. The empirical studies presented in this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of how location-defining attributes at multiple spatial-scales interact with socio-demographic attributes of heterogeneous households and individuals to determine their residential location choice, job loca…
author: Acheampong, Ransford Antwi
language: en
keywords: Urban modelling, Agent-based Modelling, Land-use, Transportation, Location choice, Mobility Patterns, Dynamic Simulation
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/7056f695-e151-447f-bc92-7df6d3112a35/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2017-07-28
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:21Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.13849