CSE 590EM: Environmental Modelling

Autumn Quarter 2001
Class meetings: Thursdays 12:30-1:20, MEB 234

Seminar coordinator: Alan Borning

In CSE 590EM we will be reading a set of papers related to research issues in land use, transportation, and environmental modelling. This seminar is intended to be of interest to students who are working on the UrbanSim project, or who might be interested in it. The first session will be an overview of UrbanSim. Then, depending on student interest, we will pick a set of papers related to microsimulation and agent-based simulation, other modelling techniques (such as cellular automata or Bayesian networks), domain-specific programming languages, and evaluation and user interaction techniques. We may also discuss some current research issues confronting us in the project and possible solutions.

Project Context

The goal of the UrbanSim project is to construct integrated models of urban land use, transportation, and environmental impacts. Our purpose is to provide tools for stakeholders such as urban planners, government staff, and citizens' groups to help predict future patterns of urban development under different possible scenarios over periods of twenty or more years. These tools should support deliberation and debate on such issues as building new transit systems or freeways, or changing zoning or economic incentives, as well as on broader issues such as sustainability, livable cities, economic vitality, social equity, and environmental preservation.

A wide-ranging set of computer science research issues are raised by this activity in software engineering, human computer interaction, graphics, databases, AI, domain-specific programming languages, and others. So far our work in CSE on this project has been primarily in the areas of software engineering, domain-specific programming languages, and HCI.

We have received substantial grant funding for the project, including a 5 year National Science Foundation ITR award, and RAs are available for students to work in any of these areas.