This study investigates the characteristics of early voluntary adopters of smart mobility technologies based on an autonomous bus rapid transit (BRT) pilot. While most prior research has relied on stated-preference surveys, this study contrasts stated acceptability of the technology with revealed use by focusing on passengers who boarded the autonomous BRT in a corridor where autonomous and conventional BRT services operated in parallel. The pilot was operated under supervised automation with an on-board safety driver who monitored the system and intervened only when necessary, rather than as a fully driverless service (SAE Level 4). Using a mixed-mode survey of 500 respondents (143 users and 357 nonusers), we applied an extended Car Technology Acceptance Model (CTAM) incorporating technology-related perceptions and attitudinal orientations. OLS models were estimated for stated acceptability, and binary logistic models for revealed use. The results show a clear divergence: perceived usefulness and self-efficacy predict stated acceptability, whereas perceived safety and sharing economy orientation are more strongly associated with actual use; age is negatively associated with use. Personal innovativeness and pro-environmental orientation relate to stated acceptability but do not translate into revealed use. The findings suggest that early uptake of autonomous BRT depends less on general technological enthusiasm than on safety trust and shared mobility orientation, and should be generalised cautiously to fully driverless BRT services.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant social disaster that radically affected the paradigm of current urbanization and city-center living. Responses to the disaster varied depending on related experiences, individual status, and attitudes. Thus, this research extends the previous literature by examining the effects of experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic, socioeconomic status, and how perceptions and attitudes affect preferences for city-center living in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, South Korea. We use data from PSSRAC (Perception Survey of Seoul metropolitan area Residential Awareness during COVID-19) of 2021. A binary logistic regression method is used to examine significant characteristics that affected the residential preference change due to “Experience,” “Status,” and “Attitude” in the COVID-19 era. The findings showed that respondents’ experience, status, and attitude related to the pandemic could have a complex effect on predictions of preference, for central or suburban living tendencies in the post-COVID-19 era. In terms of “Experience,” people who had bad experiences during the pandemic, for example, poor economic conditions were associated with suburban area living trends. For “Status,” socially and economically vulnerable groups preferred suburban residence due to the steep rise in housing prices in the city center after the pandemic. Finally, for “Attitude,” ‘value of housing for investment” was positively associated with a preference for city-center living in the post-COVID-19 era; respondents with a higher priority for maintaining remote work tended not to change their current residence. This study may provide planners, housing developers, and policymakers with meaningful implications for addressing urban changes in the post-COVID-19 era. Additionally, it is expected that this research’s ESA analysis and results can be used as a valid reference for other global cities.

This comprehensive study explores urban sprawl in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA), emphasizing its rising intensity and complexity despite previous public-led planning efforts. The study aims to visualize the spatial patterns of sprawl and identify influencing factors through spatial regression analysis using grid-based population data created from actual population distributions. This approach fills a gap in the existing literature by moving beyond administrative-level analyses prone to ecological fallacies. This study scrutinizes the dynamics of population change in Seoul Metropolitan Areas (SMAs) in Korea over a decade, focusing on the predatory aspect of urban sprawl. Using grid-based population data and spatial regression analysis, the study finds that population growth is concentrated in unplanned areas with high development benefits. Three key hypotheses were examined: (1) Areas with high development potential, measured through factors like land prices and development plans, attract predatory development; (2) Improved transportation infrastructure encourages population inflow; (3) Non-urban land use, especially bare land, attracts population growth. The results offer important policy implications, particularly for preparing areas with low land prices and improving transportation infrastructures for future population influxes. Monitoring is particularly crucial in areas where development plans are already in place or where there is a high percentage of bare land.

To cope with the exacerbating housing problem due to urban population increase and rapid urbanization, the number of multi-unit residential complexes (MURCs) is sharply rising. MURCs account for approximately 30% or more of housing stocks in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas; and much higher in developing world, for example, 58% in Seoul, Korea. Likewise, the share of electricity consumption of MURCs in cities is increasing. Most existing literature analyzed the electricity consumption at household or house level and neglected the electricity consumption in publicly shared spaces and utilities such as outdoor lighting, parking system, elevators (vertical transportation), playgrounds, site water and sewage, management offices, security offices, and so forth. Unlike single houses, MURCs with hundreds or thousands of houses tend to be planned and built all at once, under one site plan. Therefore, urban design or site planning can crucially affect the aggregated electricity consumption at neighborhood level with different land use patterns and spatial configurations, which change light, shade, wind, heat island, reflection for individual houses and public domain. Site plan attributes can also affect residents’ choice of indoor and outdoor activities. A few simulation studies tried to examine the effect of urban design at neighborhood level, but empirical analysis can be hardly found mainly due to data limitation. This study aims to empirically investigate the effect of urban design on aggregated electricity consumption at a neighborhood level. We collected the aggregated electricity consumption data of 1122 MURCs in Seoul during the first half of 2016 and adopted the panel analysis. This study confirmed that more building coverage roads and pavements increase the aggregated electricity consumption; more green open space reduces it. Interestingly, mid-rise and mid-open plan would be the optimum design because of the effect of the number of floors. As the number of floors increases, electricity consumption for vertical transportation increases faster and offsets the benefit of high-rise and high-open plan. The study is significant, because, unlike previous studies, it empirically analyzed the collective consumption of electricity at a neighborhood level, considering the site plan features. Furthermore, this study provides evidence-based implications for sustainable urban design, especially for MURCs.

Recent urban planning tends to encourage higher density assuming that density would increase urban quality of life (UQoL) and sustainability. However, in the developing world, numerous primate cities are already highly densified. For example, Jakarta's density is over 1,500 people/ha. The population grew from 6.5 million in 1980 to 10 million in 2015. Jakarta's urban area also expanded to neighbouring jurisdictions including Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi and became a metropolitan area with 23 million people. Although Jakarta is dense, it is inefficient, causing Jakarta to encourage more compact development to improve quality of life (QoL) and sustainability from 2005. Yet, the relationship between compactness and QoL has remained unquestioned. This study aimed to investigate the perceived QoL of citizens living in three types of neighbourhood - high density and high mixed-use (HH), high density and low mixed-use (HL), and low density and high mixed-use (LH). This study finds that residents in LH find QoL to be higher compared with other types of residents. It also reveals that mixed use plays a more important role in improving residents' QoL than does density. In addition, social cohesion and inter-personal relationships are more likely to occur in LH. High density tends to lead to lower QoL. This study calls for revisiting our beliefs in high density and more in-depth studies on the relationship between urban form and QoL.

본 연구는 국내 MW모형 연구의 주류를 이룬 주거면적 기반의 모형에 가격 기반의 모형을 보완할 필요가 있다는 점에서 시작하였다. 최초 Mankiw and Weil(1989)이 제안했던 주거소비 기반의 모형을 적용함으로써 기존 연구가 제시하지 못했던 몇 가지 시사점을 찾아낼 수 있었다. 이를 위해 통계청이 제공하는 2016 주거실태조사 자료를 사용하였으며, 주거면적 외에 월 주거소비를 계산하여 종속변수로 분석하였다. 첫째로, 1인가구 더미의 효과는 면적모형과 가격모형이 서로 다르므로, 1인가구의 주택수요 고려시 가격모형의 확인이 필요하다. 둘째로, 자가가구의 주택수요는 면적으로 추정할 때보다 가격으로 추정할 때 고령자들의 영향력이 크다. 셋째로, 고령화와 1인가구의 급격한 증가가 예상되는 가운데 면적모형 외에 주거소비모형을 지속적으로 모니터링 할 필요가 있다. 결론적으로 MW모형 기반의 주택시장 수요는 이제까지 주류를 이뤄온 주택면적 기반 추정 외에 주거비지출로 나타나는 수요, 즉 지불의사금액(Willingness to Pay) 차원에서도 다뤄질 필요가 있다.

Most research regarding the relationship between cities and transportation carbon emission is focused on intra-city travel, and it has been found that compact patterns tend to emit less carbon. Yet, little is known about the impact of national-level spatial distribution of cities and inter-city transportation on transportation CO2 emissions. Further, most studies regarding the impact of urbanization on CO2 emission directly examine the relationship between urbanization rate and CO2 emission with little consideration of the national spatial pattern of urbanization. This study hypothesizes that the national-level spatial distribution of cities – in a dispersed or polarized pattern – affects national transport CO2 emissions due to the varying intensity of inter-city transportation. This study uses the Gridded Population of the World v3 and v4 from Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) of NASA to examine the national-level spatial distribution of urban agglomerations. It applies the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. The analysis shows that, among 60–90% of urbanized countries, spatially dispersed urbanized countries (e.g., countries with many medium-sized cities scattered over the territory) show a lower national transportation CO2 emission than spatially polarized urbanized countries (e.g., there are only a few large cities). The urban system elasticity of transportation CO2 emissions is 0.4 or 0.6. That is, if the degree of polarization decreases by 1%, national transportation CO2 emissions decrease by approximately 0.4–0.6%. This effect is similar to the effect of GDP per capita of around 0.5%. Because it is particularly difficult to disperse people and economic activities across a country once spatial polarization is set, this study's findings have the most significant implications for urbanizing countries. If urbanizing countries adopt national urban policy and territorial plans to form dispersed cities, it could reduce transportation carbon emissions and promote sustainable development. For already urbanized countries, national urban policy development is recommended to promote spatially dispersed rather than polarized national urban systems.

이 연구는 혼잡세와 대중교통 보조금이라는 두 가지 정책을 통해 도시의 교통량을 감소시킬때, 도시의 토지지용, 교통 환경, 대기오염 등에 나타나는 정책 효과를 이해하고 시각화함을 목적으로 한다. 교통정책이 토지이용 등에 미치는 효과는 장기간의 관측이 필요하므로, 본 연구는 우선 연산일반균형모형을 활용하여 수치해석적으로 접근함으로써 후속 연구의 지표가 되고자 하였다. 혼잡세와 대중교통 보조금은 모두 도시 중심부의 교통량을 감소시키는 것으로 나타났으나 도시 전역에 대해서는 그 효과가 다르다. 혼잡세는 교통비용을 증가시켜 도시민의 거주와 고용을 도시 중심으로 집중시키는 효과가 있다. 대중교통 보조금은 도시민의 통근수단을 버스로 전환하여 교통량 자체는 감소시키지만, 감소된 교통비용에 따라 도시민들이 거주와 고용을 도시 외곽으로 바꾸면서 통근거리를 늘리는 효과가 있다. 결과적으로 두 정책이 비슷한 정도로 교통량을 감소시키도록 조정했을 때, 혼잡세는 대기오염 유발을 강력하게 막을 수 있었지만, 대중교통 보조금의 효과는 크지 않았다. 반면 대중교통 보조금은 경제활동을 크게 감소키지만 않지만, 혼잡세는 도시 전역의 경제활동을 감소시킨다는 부작용이 있었다. 혼잡세와 대중교통 보조금은 도시민의 소득수준에 따라 그 반응이 달라질 것으로 추측된다. 향후 연구에서 소득수준에 따른 행태적 반응에 대한 연구가 이어지기를 기대한다.