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Abstract: Recent advancements in computing and geographic information systems (GIS) have revolutionized the development of planning support systems (PSSs) to study and simulate the future of travel demand in urban areas. While travel demand models have been widely developed and used to inform the urban planning process, very little has been done to explicitly account for demographic changes and the ageing of population within such models. The work in this paper bridges this gap by describing the development and application of IMPACT (integrated model for population ageing consequences on transportation), a GIS-based PSS capable of assessing the ramifications of demographic changes, including population ageing, on the performance and usage of urban transportation systems. Unlike existing operational PSSs, IMPACT possesses unique and novel features that enable it to model demographic changes and urban travel demand for various age cohorts. Through the simulation of scenarios for varying fertility rates, the paper explores and quantifies the impacts of ageing and population age-structure changes on travel patterns in the census metropolitan area (CMA) of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. The analysis suggests a consistent increase in the number of trips and mobility levels of elderly drivers, as a result of population ageing over time. Furthermore, increases in fertility rates could significantly impact the usage and performance of the transportation system for certain periods of the day, by the year 2031. Results such as these are important to consider when planning the future of cities. The findings in this paper provide new insights into the future of urban travel in the Canadian context. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In 1988, Dr. Kyoji Sassa proposed a geotechnical model [Sassa, K., 1988. Geotechnical model for the motion of landslides. In: Proceedings, 5th International Symposium on Landslides, vol. 1, pp. 37–56] to simulate landslide motion and to establish a theoretical framework for landslide simulation. In 2002, based on the experimental results of using a ring-shear apparatus for simulation of landslide motion, Wang and Sassa proposed a model for apparent friction coefficient change (which is a key parameter of landslide motion) that can be combined with Sassa’s original geotechnical model. As presented in the model for apparent friction coefficient change, a landslide is considered as a two-layer structure, i.e., a debris layer and a sliding zone. During landsliding, the thickness of the debris layer changes, while shear resistance changes in the sliding zone. In this paper, after a brief introduction of the two models, a parametric study is presented to show the differing importance of each parameter. Also included is a presentation of three case studies: The 1995 Fei Tsui Road landslide, and the 1995 Shum Wan landslide, both in Hong Kong, and the 1903 Frank slide in Alberta, Canada to show the advantage of combining the two models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]