SprintCity. SESSION - Fields of View (July 20 th 2013) GAME - SprintCity v2.0 - Zaancorridor

Transcription

1 SprintCity SESSION - Fields of View (July 20 th 2013) GAME - SprintCity v2.0 - Zaancorridor PARTICIPANTS Bangalore: Onkar Hoysala (Province), Murali Krishna Ganji (Alkmaar), Harsha Krishna (Zaanstad), Vardhan Varma (Amsterdam) New Delhi: Namrata Mehta (Rail Transport) Rotterdam: Merten Nefs (Zuid Kennemerland) CONTACT Merten Nefs (Deltametropolis Association, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) sprintstad@deltametropool.nl Onkar Hoysala (Fields of View, Bangalore, India)

2 SprintCity introduction Planning support tool SprintCity simulates urban growth and train frequencies along a rail corridor, over a period of 20 years. The purpose of the tool is to give decision-makers insight into the relationship of spatial development and infrastructure, competition between municipalities and the specific qualities and opportunities of each stations on the corridor. It also provides a safe platform to experiment with development strategies and collaboration between the different stakeholders. Transit-Oriented Development, or TOD, is a promising urban model for densely populated areas, such as the Netherlands. The complexity of spatial planning and transport integration, as well as the fact that there is not one responsible authority for TOD, causes the current suboptimal use of rail infrastructure in The Netherlands. SprintCity was developed to help break these barriers. It is an initiative of the Deltametropolis Association, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology CPS and Movares. In its prototype phase it was partially funded by the Next Generation Infrastructure foundation. Today, the development of SprintCity is paid fully by the users of the tool, in most cases a Provincial government. In order to include human decision making in the simulation, SprintCity has the format of a role playing game (ideally played by the real stakeholders), supported by a computer model with realistic data input. It features three types of players: The Province-player controls the overall development of the corridor, and needs to find an optimal location for regional functions, such as a hospital or educational facility. The Transport-player controls the time table of the rail services on the corridor, and aims to increase ridership while running a profitable service. The Municipality-players control the land use plans of each station area, and have the goal to develop these areas according to previously chosen ambitions and a master plan. Available train capacity, phased development areas and limited market demand for housing, offices and amenities provide natural bounderies to the system.

3 SprintCity has been used by more than 350 people, in more than 40 sessions, since It has been applied on 4 rail corridors in The Netherlands. Implementation in Belgium is now being studied. In principle, it can be used on any transport corridor (including Bus Rapid Transit), both existing corridors with existing and new stations, as well as new corridors or comparative corridor alternatives. Especially these latter applications may be relevant for developing metropolitan areas in India. SprintCity session In the first rounds, municipalities competed severely over urban developments. In later rounds this problem was in part solved by communicating. However, Heerhugowaard and Sloterdijk kept having trouble to fill the extensive development areas until Corridor overview screen (2030) The Municipality-players initally did not realise that they could zone areas by density as well. After this was clarified in the second round, the municipalities began adding varying densities of zoning in their regions. This added another dynamic to the game: the municipalities began communicating with the province and the Transport player about the sort of plan they had made, and what they would require for such a plan from the Province and Transport. For example, Zaandam player said he would need more train stations along all his stations as he had planned a very high density residential zone at Krommenie, Wormerveer, Koog Zandijk, Koog Bloemwijk and Zaandam. Similarly, Amsterdam player said since he had zoned Amsterdam Sloterdijk as high density commerical area, he would require hotels there.

4 Even though the session was held online, at three different locations, communication on the Google+ platform was fruitful, especially between Province and Transport players (concerning placement of new facilities and adjustment of time table). Station area planning screen: current situation (left side bar) versus future situation (right) Train time table screen (2030)

5 Session results The teams were able to accommodate 76% of the demand for urban functions along the corridor, hereby performing better than the Business as Usual scenario (56%) and slightly worse than the real stakeholders did at the Zaancorridor (86%). These spatial developments resulted in the following increase in inhabitants, jobs (including visitors of facilities) and ridership. It must be noted that a great deal of the increase in jobs, visitors and ridership can be explained by the extraordinary building activities of the Province player. He built two education centers, two furniture retail centers, three hotel + conference centers, four hospitals and three recreation facilities, while in reality only one of each functions is needed in the area inhabitants jobs ridership (index 2010) ,5 1,4 1,3 1,2 1,1 1 0,9 Discusssion SprintCity could eventually be implemented in the context of India: facilitate rapid urban expansion; avoid congestion; improving social equality by accessibility of jobs and facilities; optimize phasing of urban developments, organizing short term objectives within scope of long term master plan. Transit-Oriented Development is not common practice yet in India, but several corridor projects are ongoing. These are used to attract investors, industries and manufacturing units by improving the connections on a regional level. Also commuter rail corridors can be an interesting case. Just as in The Netherlands, TOD is a chicken-egg-problem what comes first? Spatial plans wait for improved accessibility and train frequencies are only increased when a certain urban density and ridership is reached. SprintCity can be used to experiment with simultaneous development of rail and urbanization. As in other countries, also the municipalities in India find it hard to think and plan on a regional level, optimizing their plans with their neighboring municipalities. Preliminary implementation plan 1. Organize more sessions in India, via internet, to get feedback from experts and government officials 2. Translate software into English (could be in 2 parts, first database text and later the labels that are embedded in the code) 3. Gather rail transport data, spatial plans, land use and socioeconomic data. 4. Draw maps and graphs for station areas in India 5. Implement India network and first corridor in SprintCity 6. Organize sessions and discuss feedback, make adjustments etc.