A novel global urban typology framework for sustainable mobility futures
Author(s)
Oke, Olufolajimi; Aboutaleb, Youssef Medhat.; Akkinepally, Arun P; Lima De Azevedo, Carlos Miguel; Han, Yafei; Zegras, P. Christopher; Ferreira Jr, Joseph; Ben-Akiva, Moshe E; ... Show more Show less
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Urban mobility significantly contributes to global carbon dioxide emissions. Given the rapid expansion and growth in urban areas, cities thus require innovative policies to ensure efficient and sustainable mobility. Urban typologies can serve as a vehicle for understanding dynamics of cities, which exhibit high variability in form, economic output, mobility behavior, among others. Yet, typologies relevant for sustainable urban mobility analyses are few, outdated and not large enough in scope. In this paper, we present a new typologization spanning 331 cities in 124 countries. Our sample represents 40% of the global urban population and contains the most recent data from 2008 to date. Using a factor analytic and agglomerative clustering approach, we identify 9 urban factors and 12 typologies. We discuss the implications of this new framework for researchers and planners and investigate the relationships between mobility and environmental sustainability indicators. Notably, we show an immediate application of the urban typologies to better understanding travel behavior and also describe their usage for detailed large-scale simulation in representative prototype cities for insights into sustainable future mobility policy pathways. Our data and results are publicly available for further exploration and will serve as a foundation for future analyses toward desirable urban and environmental outcomes. ©2019
Date issued
2019-09Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and PlanningJournal
Environmental Research Letters
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Oke, Jimi B. et al., "A novel global urban typology framework for sustainable mobility futures." Environmental Research Letters 14, 9 (September 2019): no. 095006 doi. 10.1088/1748-9326/ab22c7 ©2019 Author(s)
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1748-9326