Sustainable urban mobility : exploring the role of the built environment

This dissertation examines the concept of sustainable mobility within an urban context. In essence, the research aims to answer the question, "What role does a city's built environment play, if any, in the sustainability of its mobility system?" To answer this question, I first derive an operational definition of sustainable mobility: maintaining the capability to provide non-declining accessibility in time. Providing non-declining accessibility depends on our ability to maintain net capital (natural, human-made, social) stocks, or, at least, the capability of these stocks to provide current levels of accessibility to future generations. In other words, we can think of a more sustainable mobility system as one that provides more welfare per unit of throughput, with welfare measured by accessibility and throughput measured by mobility. This is a normative framework. It can only indicate relative levels of sustainable mobility. Within a specific city, this framework can allow us to measure which parts of the city produce more sustainable mobility patterns. To employ this framework, I utilize a utility-derived accessibility measure.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Zegras, Pericles Christopher, 1968-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ralph Gakenheimer.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34170
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34170

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34170