Chapter 14: Evolutionary Approaches to Transport and Spatial Systems

The modern spatial economy has a global character that is leading to important socio-economic and political changes. New transport and telecommunications flows and forms play a significant role in this through their dynamic and complex interplay with the economic and political driving forces behind globalization. In analyzing such an impact, operational and measurable indices of transport and communication patterns are necessary to map out and predict emerging trends. It could be useful in this respect to consider tools and models that have also been adopted in other disciplines. Transport and spatial modeling are already closely linked. The most widely used transport models – spatial interaction/entropy models and discrete-choice models (DSMs) – have their roots in regional economics and econometrics, and still remain the fundamental models to plan and predict transport behavior. But these are mainly static models, i.e. their mapping refers to a fixed year, and the related forecast analyses are based on assumptions of constant attitudes in the user’s behavior. However, the rich variety of dynamic behavior in transport and spatial settings calls for a dynamic approach to analyses and models.