Urban Transportation and Energy Efficiency

William J. Mitchell

May 10, 2006

Image: Franco Vairani

SMART CITIES MIT Media Lab: Concept Car with GM

Cities are immense consumers of energy, and their appetite is growing

They show up as an increasing number of increasingly intense hotspots

How cities consume energy:

1. Construction of buildings (steel, aluminum, glass, on-site assembly processes

2. Operation of buildings (airconditioned glass skyscrapers in Houston)

3. Flows of people and supplies among buildings

Calculating circulation cost:

1. Circulation network and location-to-location distance matrix

2. Activity network and activity-to-activity traffic flow matrix

3. Cost / distance (measure in dollars, time energy)

4. An assignment of activities to locations (overlay activity network on circulation network)

For a given assignment, consider all pairs of locations and sum:

distance x traffic volume x cost/distance

Minimizing flow cost (distance x traffic volume x cost/distance):

1. Increase urban density to shrink the circulation network (Manhattan versus Phoenix)

2. Reduce zoning granularity to shrink the circulation network (fine-grained urban village versus industrial era zoning)

3. Substitute telecommunication for transportation to reduce some of the flow (telecommuting, etc)

4. Introduce new transportation technology to reduce cost/distance (hybrid cars, etc)

5. Find better ways of supplying energy to transportation networks (distributed generation combined with distributed charging)

6. Find more efficient assignments of activities to locations

Drivetrain and suspension contained inside wheel space

Standardized snap-on connection to chassis

Drive by wire

Intelligent wheel robots

SMART CITIES MIT Media Lab: Concept Car with GM

QuickTime™ and aCinepak decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

SMART CITIES MIT Media Lab: Concept Car with GM

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video 3 decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Minimizing flow cost (distance x traffic volume x cost/distance):

1. Increase urban density to shrink the circulation network (Manhattan versus Phoenix)

2. Reduce zoning granularity to shrink the circulation network (fine-grained urban village versus industrial era zoning)

3. Substitute telecommunication for transportation to reduce some of the flow (telecommuting, etc)

4. Introduce new transportation technology to reduce cost/distance (hybrid cars, etc)

5. Find better ways of supplying energy to transportation networks (distributed generation combined with distributed charging)

6. Find more efficient assignments of activities to locations