An Activity Location Model for a Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to propose an Activity Location Model and to present an attempt at validation by applying it to the Osaka Metropolitan Area. The Activity Location Model is a linear urban model, which considers an economic base mechanism among activities. Various levels of employment and population in each zone are estimated with several hypotheses of quantitative and spatial relationships among activities. The total model is calibrated using various kind of data in the Osaka Metropolitan Area, whose results are fairly good as well as those of validation. Moreover, the effective use of the model to predict the change of activity pattern caused by transport improvements are shown in this paper.