Evaluation model of energy and environmental efficiency of the mobility and the activities structure of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona - EVALUAMET

Abstract

The problem is related to recent urban dynamics, that denote a marked process of decentralization of both population and economic activities which will generate substantial mobility flows. This new paradigm involves significant impacts to the natural environment. This raises one of the major challenges in the context of public policy, which is the mainstreaming of social and environmental sustainability criteria in the process of construction and evaluation of the different plans and programs. In these process a) is a functional dissociation between the transportation and land use plans, b) is a significant difference in the quantitative methods that support the development of territorial planning, c) social and environmental assessment are dissimilar in regard to criteria and techniques, and d) there is an absence of an integrated vision in shaping the plans. Therefore, we implemented a procedure to evaluate the environmental and social efficiency of the functionality of metropolitan areas, based on an integrated transport and land use model, specifically to assess social and environmental efficiency. The final model has been adapted to the availability of information, both in its spatial and temporal scale, a condition that makes possible the replication of the model in other regional situations, as well as updating the parameters and calibrated coefficients. The model maintains consistency throughout the calculation procedure, including relevant techniques for each topic, but not the most complex and advanced, because the value of the proposal is the integration between the various issues involved. The implemented sub-models show good performance. While errors are significant in some cases, the model must be applying to assess the differential impact of the situation with and without the project, eliminating the absolute estimation error, giving greater validity to measure the specific effect of project or plan. The results of each stage of the model should be considered as a trend behaviour, which generates a more or less efficient (sustainable) that the base situation. The applications of the model can be very varied and useful to the extent that show traditionally known as the indirect effects (systemic) of projects.