Western cape land use model overview

Abstract

The Western Cape Land Use Model (WCLM) is integrated with the Western Cape Transport Model and Western Cape Freight Model in a system constituting the Western Cape Land Use and Transport Interaction Model (WCLUTI). The WCLM includes several model components: regions are stratified by inside and outside the City of Cape Town, markets are divided by residential and non-residential, and land use identity is divided by “formal” and “informal”. The “formal” component is modelled using CUBE Land software, which is designed to forecast the expected occupied real estate supply, location of households and firms/jobs, and rent values. The “informal” residential land use (additional informal dwellings and informal settlements) is modelled by means of utility-based supplemental models, affecting the available land and the formal location behaviour in areas close to informal property groups through a feedback loop. The objective of the joint model is to predict these components for the forecasting year under different user-defined scenarios of population and economic growth, regulations and subsidies, real estate projects and accessibility/attractiveness levels provided by the transportation system. These forecasts feed the transportation model in an integrated system, informing the land use and transport planning process through performance-based indicators, helping to achieve coordination across different sectors.