- On accessibility and energy efficiency modelling    1457 kb by    Novotny, Vojtech & Franke, Daniel & Pokorna, Irena | novotnyvoj@fzp.czu.cz    Short Outline The paper presents an accessibility model dealing with the challenges of effective accessibility to employment and energy consumption connected with commuting. The proposed GIS model is being designed for an instant use in scenario development. Abstract The presented paper concerns with functional settlement structure. Functional settlement structure is understood as a system that consists of functionally interconnected local communities. The model introduced in this paper attempts to quantify the potential intensity of functional connection of individual local communities into a system, which intensity of connection is referred to as ”accessibility”, and with the energy efficiency of the commuting system that supports the system. The authors believe that quantification of accessibility allows recognition of weak elements of the system, either weak central places or missing connections. This then would provide sound grounds for rational decisions on appropriate actions on regional scale, either strengthening of weak centres or improvement of connections. The authors of this paper are convinced that accessibility to employment is one of the core impetuses of the changes of urban or urbanized land, which belief is strongly supported by numerous socio-geographic surveys. All the changes of the urbanized or urban regions have an impact on the intensity of commuting flows that all are sustained by input of energy. The model presented therefore deals both with accessibility of the different parts of the settlement system by different means of transportation and by the impact of those on the unit (commuter) CO2 emissions. The model is designed mostly for scenario development purposes, which defined the architecture of the model to be relatively input undemanding and robust, giving assessed values for informed decision making. Keywords GIS, models, accessibility, energy efficiency Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2009: Low Carbon Cities   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper