Development of a TOD Index through Spatial Analyses and HFIS in Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The contemporary world possesses characteristics such as urbanism and expansion of cities that require a specific type of planning. Transit-oriented development (TOD) planning has emerged as an applicable planning method, which tries to achieve integrated land-use and transportation planning. In this research, a novel methodology was proposed to develop an efficient TOD index measuring land-use characteristics in neighborhoods of an urban region in Tehran, Iran. This index helps urban planners make optimum decisions regarding the development of public transit services in the region. In this research, a comprehensive set of criteria and indicators were developed to compute TOD index. Each indicator was computed using spatial analyses in the vector format since most of the indicators were spatial indicators and compatible with the vector format. Then the indicators were aggregated by hierarchical fuzzy inference system (HFIS) because of the large number of the rules. By such an aggregation method, the model considered the uncertainties and linguistic terms of experts’ rules as well as decreasing the number of rules from 1,6, to 221. Due to the fact that the research data were related to the year 25, the activities that have been conducted since 25 were evaluated based on the model output. The results demonstrate that TOD planning enables urban planners not only to determine shortcomings of land-use characteristics, but also to allocate public transit services in different neighborhoods.