A unifying modelling framework to simulate the Spatial Economic Transport Interaction process at urban and national scales

Abstract: Much effort has been expended in the last decades in developing modelling frameworks to simulate the so-called Spatial Economic Transport Interaction (SETI) process. Models have been originated according to autonomous bodies of knowledge connected to the analysis and interpretation of each reference spatial scale: urban and national. However, there have been few exchanges of knowledge flowing from one scale to another. This paper proposes a unifying modelling framework able to capture the two-way relationship between spatial economic and transport systems at both the national and urban scales. Four main elements are presented: (i) a literature review of Spatial Economic (SE) models at national and urban scales; (ii) a description of the theoretical evolution involving a class of SE models from the theoretical backgrounds to the current formulations; (iii) the proposition of a SETI model which has two modelling components: a transport macro-model and a spatial economic macro-model; (iv) a model specification for national and urban scales. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]