Expropriation for the purposes of construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure Résumé This thesis deals with expropriation under the regime of Act No. 416/2009 Coll. on accelerating the construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure and electronic communications infrastructure (Act on Acceleration of Construction). The thesis provides an analysis of selected provisions of this Act, evaluates the possibilities of interpretation of questionable provisions and proposes possibilities of de lege ferenda optimisation of the existing legislation. The thesis also responds to the recent amendment to the Act on Acceleration of Construction implemented by Act No. 169/2018 Coll. and analyses the potential impacts of the new legislation on the procedural position of the parties to the proceedings as well as the conformity of the selected provisions of the amendment with the constitutional order. In the first chapter, the reader is acquainted with the notion of expropriation, with the content of this term, the relevant legal regulation and the substantive conditions of expropriation. The following second chapter contains a brief description of the Act on Accelerating Construction and its contextualisation in the terms of historical and political circumstances of its adoption. The third chapter...

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There is an abundance of ready-made tools for assessing the economic value of green infrastructure. Each with more or less unique design components and method approaches concerning quantifying and monetizing green infrastructure. Use of a single ready-made tool to support decisions and justify funding of inclusion of multifunctional green infrastructure in urban development may, due to different tools’ various designs and method approaches, risk excluding acknowledgement of relevant ecosystem services. This literature study embodies the logic of comparison by using content analysis method to explore possibilities of producing more comprehensive economic assessments of green infrastructure. This through contrasting content and design features of two such tools: Benefits Estimation Tool, and Green Infrastructure Valuation Toolkit. In addition, it analyses and discusses potential problems and opportunities that may arise when complementing tool A with methods or design features from tool B, and vice versa. Findings suggest that some few methods are similar enough not to constitute a complementary foundation between the tools, but that a combined use of some specific quantification and valuation methods may increase an assessments’ comprehensiveness. Findings also suggest that in combining the tools’ methods inaccuracy and uncertainty of an assessment are likely to increase. The study discusses tool-related problems regarding uncertainty, assessment of social benefits, and perception of value. It concludes that even though mutual complementarity is possible to achieve and in doing so more aspects of GI will be addressed, combining valuation tools in the pursuit of increased assessment comprehensiveness will likely generate problems in terms of assessment inaccuracy. The study may provide aid for developers of green infrastructure valuation tools and for practitioners conducting economic green infrastructure assessments or cost-benefit analyses. / Det finns en uppsjö färdigdesignade verktyg syftade till att bedöma det ekonomiska värdet av grön infrastruktur. Varje med mer eller mindre unika designkomponenter och metodsammansättningar gällande kvantifiering och värdeuppskattning av grön infrastruktur. Användandet av enbart ett sådant verktyg för att skapa beslutsgrund och rättfärdiga investering för multifunktionell grön infrastruktur i en stadsmiljö kan, på grund av olika verktygs varierande design och metodsammansättningar, riskera utesluta relevanta ekosystemtjänster. Den här litteraturstudien tar avstamp i en så kallad jämförande logik genom att använda den vetenskapliga metoden innehållsanalys för att undersöka möjligheterna att skapa mer omfattande ekonomisk bedömning av grön infrastruktur. Detta genom att kontrastera innehåll och design av två sådana verktyg: Benefits Esitmation Tool och Green Infrastructure Valuation Toolkit. Dessutom analyserar och diskuterar studien potentiella problem och möjligheter som kan uppstå när verktyg A kompletteras med metoder eller designkomponenter från verktyg B, eller vice versa. Undersökningsresultaten antyder att mellan de två verktygen är vissa metoder så lika att ingen komplimenterande grund kan utrönas, men att ett kombinerat användande av några specifika kvantifierings- och värdeuppskattningsmetoder kan öka omfattningen av en ekonomisk bedömning av grön infrastrukturs värde. Resultaten antyder också att genom att öka omfattningen av den sådan bedömning brister bedömningens precision och rimligen ökar även dess osäkerhet gällande uttryck av ekonomiskt värde. Studien diskuterar verktygsrelaterade problem gällande osäkerhet, bedömning av sociala fördelar, och förnimmelse av värde. Den drar slutsatsen att ömsesidig komplettering av verktygen och flertalet nya aspekter av grön infrastruktur till trots är det sannolikt att ett kompletterande av verktyg skapar problem gällande bedömningens precision. Studien kan bistå med hjälp till utvecklare av bedömningsverktyg för grön infrastruktur och för tjänstemän som genomför en ekonomisk bedömning eller lönsamhetsanalys av gröninfrastruktur.

The development of infrastructure has always been one of the greatest challenges faced by the South African government since the advent of democracy in 1994. Recognizing this challenge, government committed itself to the pursuit of Public-Private Partnerships for the development of infrastructure as early as 1996. SANRAL and Transnet are the two national agencies responsible for the development of transportation infrastructure in the country. While both agencies are battling to fulfill their mandates, SANRAL seems to be the one battling the most. The organization is responsible for all national and some provincial roads. Between the years 2000-2011, they reported profits for only three periods while incurring losses for the rest. SANRAL faces a daunting task. Firstly, their annual budget allocation from government is insufficient to address the backlogs on their non-toll roads network. Secondly, they are not allowed to cross-subsidize non-toll roads with revenue from the toll roads. Lastly, they have been requested by parliament to double their roads network. The aim of this study was to analyse the development of transportation infrastructure through Public Private Partnerships with focus on the Maputo Development Corridor, a cross-border transportation corridor initiative implemented by the governments of South Africa and Mozambique through Public Private Partnerships. The analysis was carried out using secondary research data as well as other data on the case study. The objectives of this study were adapted from those of the Maputo Development Corridor and then analysed in terms of the rationale for Public-Private Partnerships, their benefits and limitations as discussed in the Public-Private Partnerships literature reviewed. The findings of this study are that in general the purpose of using Public-Private Partnerships for the Maputo Corridor Development was achieved as there were more high benefits than low benefits. However, the initiative as a whole has failed to delivery sufficiently on social aspects such as job creation. The initiative has also failed to mitigate the high negative impacts of the limitations. It should be noted that the results of this study are an interpretation of the researcher and this interpretation is based purely on the data obtained. This study calls for further research to be carried out on the socioeconomic benefits of tolling of roads through Public-Private Partnerships based on the challenges faced by SANRAL as discussed above as well as the current public opposition to the tolling of roads. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Network switches are an integral part of most network-based data acquisition systems. Switches fall into the category of network infrastructure. They support the interconnection of nodes and the movement of data in the overall network. Unlike endpoints such as data acquisition units, recorders, and display modules, switches do not collect, store or process data. They are a necessary expense required to build the network. The goal of this paper is to show how a small integrated network switch can be used to maximize the value proposition of a given switch port in the network. This can be accomplished by maximizing the bandwidth utilization of individual network segments and minimizing the necessary wiring needed to connect all the network components.

This thesis derives and validates Performance Indicators for Safe Mobility for Older Road Users in Urban Areas. Performance Indicators are objective, auditable parameters, which when used as a set can provide additional information to decision-makers about the operation of the transport system. Great Britain, in common with many countries across Europe has an ageing population. The proportion of older people who hold a driving licence and have the use of a car is also expected to rise, with future generations of older people travelling further and more frequently than previous generations. Older road users are already over-represented in traffic fatalities, particularly in urban areas. Measures to protect older road users from risk in traffic will be of crucial importance as the population ages. However, against this background the need remains for them to access key facilities such as shops, leisure activities and health care. Maintaining independent mobility is essential in maintaining mental and physical health. Traditionally, outcomes-based measures such as accident or casualty figures have been used to monitor road safety. Techniques such as hotspot analysis have identified locations on the road network where accident numbers are high, allowing modifications to road infrastructure to be designed and implemented. Using outcomes measures alone however, it is difficult to ascribe improvements in accident or casualty figures to particular policy interventions. Moreover, the effect of road safety interventions on other related policy areas mobility being one is impossible to assess without access to detailed, disaggregated exposure data. To make fully informed policy decisions about infrastructure design and how it affects older users, a better understanding of the linkages between safety and mobility is required. Performance Indicators offer the possibility to look at these linked policy objectives within a single framework. Focus group data was used in conjunction with the results of previous studies to identify the infrastructure features which present a barrier to older users safe mobility in urban areas. These included factors which increased risk, such as wide carriageways, complex junctions and fast-moving traffic, and factors which hindered mobility, such as uneven or poorly maintained pavements, poor lighting and traffic intrusion. A thematic audit of infrastructure in a case study city (Coventry) was undertaken, in order that the incidence of such infrastructure could be recorded. It was found that in many areas of the city, safe mobility for older road users was not well provided for, with the majority of locations having barriers to safety and/or mobility for both drivers and pedestrians. The audit data was then used to calculate a set of Performance Indicators, presented via spider graphs, which describe the degree to which the infrastructure caters for the safety and mobility of older drivers and pedestrians. The spider graphs allow for easy comparisons between the different geographical areas, and also between the different policy areas, allowing policy priorities to be identified. The calculated Performance Indicators were validated using case studies collected from the focus group participants. The case studies identified features that affected travel habits by causing a change of route or change of mode, providing evidence of the link between infrastructure design and safe mobility for older users. The results of the Performance Indicator analysis were then compared to accident figures, in order to identify differences between the two approaches, and to understand what policy implications would result from a monitoring framework that used Performance Indicators for safe mobility, rather than outcomes-based measures alone. One implication of the Performance Indicator approach is that it may identify different areas for priority action from those identified by accident or casualty figures. A location which does not have high accident numbers may nevertheless perform poorly on a Safety Performance Indicator measure. This is because older users who feel at risk make different route or mode choices to avoid the infrastructure, the lower accident rate being explained by lower exposure to risk. Conversely, measures to promote independent mobility for older users may increase their accident involvement, not because the environment becomes more risky, but because the exposure of older users to risk increases, because they are willing and able to walk or drive in an area they previously avoided. The thesis concludes that infrastructure design does not currently cater well for the needs of older pedestrians and drivers, and that a framework which incorporated Performance Indicators could make more explicit the trade-offs between safety and mobility, and between different categories of user. This additional information would enable policy makers and practitioners to make more informed decisions about how to prioritise competing objectives in complex urban areas.

As a critical component of the city, urban infrastructures emerge through the interactions with the socioeconomic environment. Managing the complexity behind the interactions can make the city more sustainable. By this, we mean if we provide more sustainable amenities that people desire, a greater adoption of more sustainable infrastructures will likely occur. Two categories of infrastructure have emerged in recent years as exemplars of more sustainable development: green infrastructure and transit-oriented development. At the same time, new digital tools have emerged to better predict market acceptance of these infrastructures. This dissertation employs agent-based modeling, a latent-class analysis of survey results, and an online survey to model the potential of adoption of these infrastructures and the public benefits. The principal research content of the dissertation consists of two parts. First, understanding social preference and adoption of green infrastructure (e.g., low-impact development (LID) to control storm water), and transit-oriented development (TOD) to reduce car dependence and incentivize denser land use; Second, by developing an urban model that accounts for the complexity of the urban system, the purpose is to predict the emergent property of the city (e.g., land use, water consumption, tax revenues and carbon emissions). These two aspects constitute the research content of this dissertation. The principal findings of the dissertation are: 1) the use of digital feedback tools to inform the modeling of complex urban systems; 2) the future development of the metro Atlanta area can be more compact and sustainable with implementations of LID, TOD, and the proper policy. This dissertation consists of four sections. In the first section, I have developed an agent-based model (ABM) to predict the land use pattern. The ABM is an approach suited to simulating and understanding the dynamics of the complex system. To reduce the complexity and uncertainty of the ABM, the model simulates the decisions and interaction of agents (i.e., home buyer, the developer and the local government) at the neighborhood scale. The output of the ABM serves as the baseline scenario of land use pattern for evaluating the effect of tax investment and fees on the adoption of green infrastructure designs and more compact land use patterns. Second, with the help of the ABM, I evaluated and compared the policies (i.e., impact fees, subsidy) on the adoption of green infrastructure designs and more compact land use pattern. I developed a more sustainable development (MSD) scenario that introduces an impact fee that developers must pay if they choose not to use LID (i.e., rainwater harvesting, porous pavement) to build houses or apartment homes. Model simulations show homeowners selecting apartment homes 60% of the time after 30 years of development in MSD. In contrast, only 35% homeowners selected apartment homes after 30 years of development in a business as usual (BAU) scenario where there is no impact fee for LID. The increased adoption of apartment homes results from the lower cost of using LID (i.e., rain garden, native vegetation and porous pavements) in public spaces and improved quality of life for apartment homes relative to single-family homes. The MSD scenario generates more tax revenues and water savings than does BAU. Third, as an initial effort to calibrate the home buyer’s preference for community design in the ABM, I developed an analytic model based on an existing community preference survey. The data available for this effort is from National Association of Realtors’ 2011 community preference survey. I applied a latent class choice model to this data, and discovered four classes of individuals that reveal distinctive behaviors when choosing smart growth neighborhoods, based on the interplay between aspects of community design, socioeconomic characteristics and personal attitudes. Linking the results of the latent class choice to an agent-based market diffusion model enables planners to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed smart growth neighborhood design in inducing less sprawling development. In the fourth section, I developed a survey that focuses on preferences of metropolitan Atlanta residents for LID and TOD. With the responses collected using Mechanical Turk, I developed a latent-class residential community choice model of four distinctive classes that reveal heterogeneous preferences for community designs. Spatial distribution of the four classes was mapped out to visualize the locations of the demand for different community designs in metropolitan Atlanta. The analysis of the impact of increase in housing price on the adoption of LID and TOD shows a low risk of investing in LID and TOD in metro area. Residents are willing to adopt the community with LID and TOD as compared to the corresponding one without LID and TOD. It turns out that LID and TOD have a great potential for adoption in metro Atlanta. Further, I integrated the individual residential community choice simulation into an agent-based market diffusion model to predict the emergent land use pattern and explore polices that can drive the adoption of more compact development. Results show that the current policy requiring single-family houses to implement LID based on individual sites should be switched to one that requires community-based LID for single-family houses. Such a policy switch will lead to a higher adoption of apartment homes with LID and TOD. Lastly, I estimated a 28% carbon emission reduction from more compact development driven by LID and TOD. This thesis is the very beginning of using digital feedback tools to anticipate market responses to more sustainable development alternatives. On the basis of the progress made in this dissertation, future work is recommended in terms of the development of an integrated platform that supports the integration of individual modules (e.g., land use, traffic simulation, air quality, and water resource management) for modeling the complexity, big data analytic techniques (e.g., Twitter, GPS data, sensors) for uncovering the interdependencies between infrastructures and socioeconomic development, and the exploration of sustainability metrics for public communication to build citizen capacity for sustainable cities.

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy