Comparison of the Interaction between land use and public transportation: Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and Metropolitan Chicago'

Abstract

The global context of population shifting from rural to urban areas brings the growth of large cities and metropolitan areas that surround them. In this context, the planning of the public transport network is vital in getting a sustainable mobility. Before planning the public transport network we must have a regional study of several variables that come into play when developing transport network . The objective of this thesis is to reveal the relationship between certain regional variables and public transportation. To do this , we decided to study the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and Metropolitan Area from Chicago as a comparison . This will get to see the behavior and influence of certain variables on the supply and demand of public transport in two different metropolitan areas . The first part embraces a deep territorial study including demographics , land use and characterization of mobility transport . At the end of this section some correlations between transport demand and territorial variables such as population density or the existence of certain land uses are evident Afterwards a study of the existing supply of public transport in the two metropolitan areas is performed. The study of the demand for public transport is also done. This transit demand analysis is needed to see its behavior in connection with transit supply but looking also for the correlation of such demand with the land use . Thus the section concludes with a study of the interaction between supply and demand of public transport with territorial structure and land use. A study of future public transport plans is done for the two metropolitan areas to define the priority future infrastructures to perform as well as an investment comparative between the two infrastructure plans applicable into the metropolitan areas under study.