07 Feb 2018 | 5pm | Quantitative Strategies for the Analysis of Road Networks | Carlos Molinero

SUMMARY

The seminar will provide an overview of several methodologies to study cities from a quantitative perspective. These methodologies are based mainly in obtaining measurements from applying percolation processes to different representations of the network which render different results. Furthermore, these analysis will show themselves capable of producing a qualitative explanation for street networks derived from a quantitative perspective, and we will see how, as an example, the location of retail is practically predetermined by the configuration of the road network.

Other results that are obtained with these percolation processes include the generation of a systematic and natural definition for city boundaries and for the hierarchical characterisation of the network in terms of its regions and in terms of its transportation system.

BIO

Carlos Molinero studied architecture at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and then obtained a M.Res. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). 

He worked as an architect before joining the UCM as a researcher in the computer science field to work on the application of AI to testing and the formal specification of hierarchical agent systems. He then joined first the Space Group and then the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at UCL with Prof. Michael Batty to study urban systems from the perspective of complexity science.

The goal of his current research is to be able to generate an analytical framework to further extent our knowledge of the inner working of cities. The ramifications of this work will serve to better predict urban processes such as transport and movement, retail location or gain insights into the distribution of city sizes and the mechanism that determine their growth.