CASA S4 Modelling Tour Workshop

Last week CASA hosted a two day workshop showcasing our work along with researchers from the University of Leeds as part of the of the S4 European Spatial Analysis network modelling tour. Over 150 people both from the public and private sector came to the event from all across Europe. The first day of the event was designed to showcase CASA's use of new technologies for mapping and visualizing information about cities and was entitled "Geographic Information in a Web-Based World."

Talks ranged from introducing GMapCreator and MapTube which enable web-based mapping for sharing and visualising geographic information, to public engagement via the London Profiler, Public Profiler and the E-Society Classification websites. The geography and ethnicity of people's names was explored which introduced the WorldNames and Onomap websites.

Other talks on the first day explored the use of MapTube and GMapCreator for Crowdsourcing near-real time spatial surveys and understanding crowdsourced geographical information via the analysis of OpenStreetMap. On a more data oriented side, there were talks on exploring urban data collection and mapping, analysing and visualising fine scale urban form and socio-economic datasets. The day concluded with a talk by Andrew Hudson-Smith from Digital Urban on Web 2.0 and neogeography in real and virtual spaces: from geocaching through to Second Life.

The second day of the workshop was entitled "Developments in Urban Models, Simulation and Spatial Analysis" and talks ranged from: rank clocks and scaling in city sizes, geodemographics, retail modelling, the need to capture urban form patterns and processes in agent-based models, pedestrian modelling, consumer behaviour, microsimulation and 3D visualisation and communication of agent-based models.

Click here to see the full program and to download the presentations.

ABS2: Agent Based Spatial Simulation

A few weeks ago I attended a S4 workshop entitled “ABS2 Agent Based Spatial Simulation” organised by the SIMBAD (SIMulation Based on Agents to Aid Decision ) working group. The meeting was very interesting bringing agent-based modellers from a range of European countries to discuss recent work. The full program and presentations can be found here.

Modellers used a variety of software toolkits ranging from NetLogo, JADE, MATSims, AnyLogic and bespoke programs to explore a variety spatial simulations ranging from traffic simulations to land use change.

For example, road charging in Moscow (using AnyLogic), using MATSim to model travel and locational choices in Lyon, urban daily mobilities using MADKIT, how agents impact on traffic speed (using NetLogo), slowing down urban networks (e.g. to many cars leads to congestion), exploring how traffic lights affect the speed of movement and the distance between cars at different speeds). Demand responsive transport services of shared taxis over non fixed networks (e.g. the Modulobus project).



Moving away from traffic simulations, others explored the use of agent-based models to examine risks from toxic clouds, urban growth and forest fires (using JADE and GRASS), plague epidemics (NetLogo), landscape evolution due to a shifting cultivation system driven by social dynamics, the interrelationships between the built structure of a city and its social organization (Circle City is available here).



Talks also included the need to make agent-based modelling easier. For example, Philippe Mathieu discussed the need to be able to move agents behaviours between different models without the need to copy chunks of code. To this extent he showed us the IODA project. IODA basically allows one to create an interaction matrix of agent-behaviours (an ontology of agent interactions). Volker Grimm discussed individual-based models, and emphasised that representing agents is only one part of the modelling process. The other is the interaction between the agents. It was also noted that there is a need for better model descriptions with the ODD Protocol potentially being the solution.

Territorial Self-organization Model

MATer is an agent-based model that aims at reproducing the historical patterns of population settlement in a territory written using Repast. It is the result a interdisciplinary project at the University of Coimbra that combined agent-based modelling, geographic information systems and historical and archaeological evidence in order to understand how self-organizational processes shape human settlements throughout a territory.

Within the model there is simple population dynamics (birth, growing, reproducing and dying). Individuals require land to survive and seek locations to settle down (low land close to the rivers), migrating when overpopulation makes land scarce. Through these behaviours the model simulates the foundation, growth and decline of settlements, taking into account the actual geography of a territory. What I find particularly appealing is that the simulation generates roads between settlements when there is population movements and once created the roads, affect the ease with which agents move around the area.

Video Simulation of MATer

Click here to see the Project website and to find out more about the model.

2 day workshop at CASA

CASA is hosting a two day workshop on the 8th and 9th January 2009 in London: the first day of the event is designed to showcase CASA's use of new technologies for mapping and visualizing information about cities; the second day entails technical workshops, designed primarily for members of the S4 European Spatial Analysis network, but all are welcome.

Click here to see the full program and details about registration .

CATMOGS from the QMRG

The Quantitative Methods Research Group (QMRG), a Speciality Research Groups of the Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) has just finished a project of digitizing the Concepts and Techniques in Modern Geography (CATMOG) series.

This series of books were created to fill a teaching need in the field of quantitative methods in undergraduate geography courses. Each book is written by an author currently working with the technique or concept described. Topics range from Markov Chain Analysis, Classification in Geography, Area Cartograms and many more.

To view CATMOGS click here.