Understanding transport system using System Dynamics and System Thinking

1. Understand the complexity of urban transport
problem, using the Causal Loop Diagram technique
Peraphan Jittrapirom, M. Eng., PhD. Candidate
Technical University of Vienna
peeratop@gmail.com
www.kamanakom.wordpress.com

2. If I have one hour.....

3. System thinking Causal Loop
Diagram (CLD)
Urban Transport
Problems
Application of
CLD in urban
transport
problems

4. • A way to understand how a set of related entities function
by understand their connectivity
• Contrast to the reductionist approach
• Understand root cause of problem, no just symptom
System thinking

7. • Entity
• Dangle (input and output)
• Positive and negative arrows
• Arrow with time lag
Entity Dangle
+ -
Causal Loop
Diagram (CLD)

8. CLD warnings
• Must be CAUSAL not
correlation
• Plus arrow indicates
two entities are
moving in the same
direction
• Minus arrows indicates
two entities moving in
opposite direction

9. Love Trust
+
+
Tired-
ness
Sleep
-
+
Reinforcing loop
Balancing loop
Causal Loop
Diagram (CLD)
Time
Time
Love/ Trust
Sleep/tiredness

10. Love Trust
+
+
Affair
-
Causal Loop
Diagram (CLD)
Love/ Trust
Time

11. Cave
Water/food
Urban transport problem

12. Home
Workplace
Urban transport problem

13. • Using CLD to illustrate the casual links between transport
entities, their causes, and their effects.
Application of
CLD in urban
transport
problems

14. Congestion CLD
Private

15. Public transport CLD
Private

16. Public transport CLD
Private

17. Vehicle ownership CLD
Private
Private

18. Walking and cycling trips CLD
Private
Private

19. Political hindrance and infrastructure CLD
Private
Private

20. Urban sprawl CLD
Private
Private

21. Tests real policy with the CLD
• Seven measures were extracted from 19 Chiang mai's Land transport
sub-committees:
①Promotion of non-personal vehicle modes
②Road capacity expansion
③Road capacity reduction
④Relocation of traffic attractors and expansion of the city area
⑤Land use planning
⑥Population controls
⑦Improve transport organisation
Application of
CLD in urban
transport
problems

22. Impact assessment of Measure#2 Road capacity expansion
Private

23. Summary of measures assessed
• Two mitigations proposed have
direct effects on alleviating
transport problems;
• Two have directs effects on
aggravate the problems;
• Two with direct effects but their
impacts depends on the detail of
the polity; and
• One with indirect effects.
• Decision makers have slightly less
than 30% chance of solving the
transport problems using
mitigations that they believe will
alleviate the problem.
Types of mitigation
proposed
Effects
1. Promotion of non-
personal vehicles mode
Alleviate transport
problem
2. Road capacity
expansion
Aggravate transport
problem
3. Road capacity reduction Alleviate transport
problem
4. Relocation of traffic
attractors and expansion
of city
Aggravate transport
problem
5. Land use planning Impacts depending on
measures
6. Population control Indirect effects.
7. Improve transport
organization
Impacts depending on
measures

24. Conclusion
• Problem understanding increases the chance to solve it
• System thinking and CLD are tools to help better
problems understanding and to solve them
• Can be used with partial differential equations or other
mathematical models to provide quantitative analysis