Relationships between spatial characteristics of cities and resilience in urban mobility

Author(s)

João Antonio Camargo Matiolli

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Bauru. 2020-04-17.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Engenharia. Bauru
• Defense date: 2020-03-19
• Advisor: Gustavo Garcia Manzato

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the relationship between spatial characteristics of cities and the resilience in urban mobility, considering the different sizes of the municipalities, in a study applied to the state of São Paulo. To achieve this objective, we proposed the development of a method for assessing the resilience in urban mobility considering non-motorized trips (walking and cycling), using the Statistical Grid of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics as an innovation. In general, for walking, we observed that around 46% of the municipalities would be totally resilient, and this proportion corresponds to the smaller municipalities. On the other hand, the municipalities that show a lower resilience comprise approximately 11% of the total and are characterized by the largest and most populous municipalities in the state. For cycling the situation is different. We noted that only the municipalities of São Paulo and Ilhabela present a low resilience rate. In addition, we observed that 91% of the municipalities are totally resilient to this travel mode. In turn, we sought to establish a relationship between this resilience with spatial metrics of the cities through urban form indexes: Density, Concentration, Clustering and Centrality. Thus, we concluded that the household density is the parameter that stands out the most, since the larger the size of the municipality, the higher the value for this metric. For the other metrics (Concentration, Clustering and Centrality), the opposite was observed, that is, the highest values were obtained for smaller municipalities and, consequently, considered more compact. Finally, the combination between the resilience in urban mobility and spatial characteristics of cities was developed through a classification code in which both attributes varied on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the most desirable value and 5 the least desirable. The best scenario would be identified by the value 11 (read “one-one”) and the worst scenario would be indicated by the value 55 (read “five-five”). In addition, Pearson's correlation between resilience in urban mobility data and spatial metrics data showed that, for small and medium-sized municipalities, the metric with the highest value was Centrality, while for large municipalities, the metric that best suited was household density, although for the metropolitan municipalities the metric that best suited was the Clustering. Thus, according to the size of the city, there is a metric that best suits the results of resilience in urban mobility. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/10735-1 - A proposal to evaluate the urban resilience of cities in the State of São Paulo based on non-motorized travel distances combined with urban sprawling index
• Grantee: João Antonio Camargo Matiolli
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master