The self-aware city

Abstract

This thesis explores the idea of real-time urban space management. While increasing amounts of real-time information about the city, specifically the location of people and resources, appear, it becomes necessary to explore how different strategies of distributing real-time location information can be used as urban design tools for a more sustainable resource allocation. I focus on the study of street-parking, a system that clearly has a market situation with demand and supply, but due to lack of information is poorly managed today. I argue that an equilibrium state of the parking market in popular areas, similar to many other urban space markets, is a frequent over demand. The important challenges are therefore allocation optimization and queuing management. I propose five different strategies of using real-time location information to reduce search times and analyze the system through computer simulations and logic. Borrowing ideas from Game Theory, I try to illustrate how collaborative behavior between drivers could yield most efficient results from both the individual and the group point of view. Lastly, I outline some challenges that the use of real-time information systems introduce to the realm of urban design in general.