Simulating Land Use: An Exploration of the Stability of a Two Zone City

This project simulates the Concentric Zone model (Ernest Burgess, 1925) using the agent-based simulation software COBWEB, which allows comparison of transportation costs in determining the distribution of agents after a set period of time. The energy an individual uses to move one grid cell is the parameter factor used to represent transportation costs. It was hypothesized that setting up this experiment to recreate a concentric zone environment will develop a stable environment with individual agents staying in their respective zones as determined by transportation costs. However, over a period of time, the agent population would diminish or the zones won’t be as clearly expressed. In the control experiment, each agent type stayed in their respective zones and the agent count remained consistent throughout the simulation. Two more experiments were performed to observe their respective effects on the model. By increasing the number of agents, this experiment had similar averages compared the control experiment, indicating that there is a carrying capacity in order to maximize the agent’s survival. By changing AI strategies, one of the agents completely died out, suggesting that the agent’s specific AI strategy for its movement and consumption is important to consider when performing experiments. Modelling the distribution of the agents and observing the key factors affecting this distribution is useful for urban planning and transportation management. Additional research to introduce parameters for housing costs is worth exploring in future research activities to provide more interesting and detailed results from the simulation. Ce projet simule le Plan Radiocentrique, un concept qui a ete cree par Ernest Burgess, un economiste influence par von Thunen (Ernest Burgess, 1925). En particulier, ce projet utilise « COBWEB,  »  un logiciel de simulation a base d'agents qui permet la comparaison entre les couts de transport et d'autres facteurs essentiels pour determiner le resultat. L'energie qu'un individu utilise pour deplacer une cellule de la grille a ete le parametre facteur utilise pour representer les couts de transport. L'etablissement de cette experience avec un but de recreer un environnement de zone concentrique permettra de creer un environnement stable avec des agents individuels qui restent dans leurs zones respectives telles que determinees par les couts de transport. Au fil du temps, la population des agents diminuera, en affectant la stabilite de la zone. La modelisation de la distribution des agents et l'observation des facteurs cles qui influencent cette distribution sont utiles pour la planification urbaine et la gestion des transports. Des recherches supplementaires pour introduire des parametres pour les frais de logement meritent d'etre explorees.