Employment Location Modelling Within an Integrated Land Use and Transport Framework: Taking Cue from Policy Perspectives

For over four decades the integration of land use and transport models has contributed to systematic studies of economic change and employment location in cities and city regions around the world. This paper discusses one continuously running work stream that originated as a spatial model of urban stock and activity (Echenique et al. 1969) and later became encapsulated in the MEPLAN land use and transport modelling package (Echenique, 2004). One central feature of this approach is its emphasis upon simultaneously solving the employment location model with the production, trade, residential location and transport demand models for any specific year. Fast improving data availability and computer power have enabled an increasingly more complex series of models under this framework to find extensive use in supporting real policy decisions of major infrastructure investment, urban expansions and regeneration. In turn, practical policy needs have guided the priorities of model development. The paper first reviews the key ideas leading up to the formulation of the MEPLAN package. It then outlines the main applications and the experience gained from them. Current developments of this approach, particularly to incorporate advanced social accounting matrices and recursive spatial equilibrium modelling are reported next. It concludes with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and its future potential from a policy perspective.