Farooq, B.

Understanding Sustainable Evolution of Urban Engineering Systems using Behavioural Modelling and Microsimulation

Speaker: Farooq Bilal

Invited Speaker, University of British Columbia

September 08, 2011

With the rapidly growing trend in urbanization, sustainable planning and management of urban engineering systems is gaining more importance. The evolution of engineering infrastructure that is related to transportation, built-space, energy, and environment in an urban area fits the classic definition of multi-scale and multi-layered complex systems. It involves understanding the human behaviour in the context of decision-making and mutual-interactions, influences of externalities, two-way asynchronous interactions between various systems, treating them as integrated systems, and designing large-scale simulation frameworks to forecast the evolution. Only then is it possible to analyze and understand the social, economical, and environmental sustainability of these systems and thus to help policy makers in evaluating and implementing suitable policies. In this context, I will first introduce the research that I have been involved in for the past few years. The focus will then shift to the technical details of two case studies in which behavioural modelling and large-scale microsimulation have been used to assess the sustainability of engineering systems. First case study will focus on the models developed for Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and the second on Greater Brussels Area. In the end I will talk about the direction of my future research agenda.