An urban environment can be abstracted in form of a street network in order to be further analysed structurally. The urban street network can be represented in various ways by taking different principles and constraints into account. Therefore the aim of this work is to investigate human behaviour and communication in emerged urban phenomena, namely traffic flow and wayfinding, by structural characterization of an appropriate representation of an urban street network and modifying the conventional methods. / In order to characterize the depicted urban street network, centrality measure and specifically betweenness centrality is utilized. This analysis is then implemented to characterize the studied urban phenomena with respect to their structural, temporal and dynamic properties. In case of studying only the structural properties of the phenomena such as route description or self localization the conventional betweenness centrality is performed. But in case of studying the dynamic and temporal properties of a phenomenon such as traffic flow a modified version of betweenness centrality is proposed which considers dynamic and temporal aspects of human travel behaviour. / Experiments are designed to test the implementation of the suggested methods in the studied urban phenomena. The results of experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed model in characterization of the studied urban phenomena in this thesis and then mention some of the problems and potential areas for future works.

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Streets provide the framework of a city and they are necessary for human life. Some underlying patterns of street networks cannot be directly recognized by people. In this study, topological analysis of urban street networks was adopted to build up new insight into urban morphology. Space syntax, which has been integrated into GIS, was applied for the analysis of spatial configuration, and fifty Swedish cities were chosen as samples to uncover various urban patterns. Street connectivity was the focus of the analysis and axial lines were the main analytical tools. The aim of this study was to hierarchically represent the cities’ streets and classify the sample cities into different types by urban morphology. Street data for Swedish cities were collected from OpenStreetMap. ArcGIS 10, with the Axwoman extension, provided a platform to carry out the topological analysis. Natural roads, axial lines and space syntax parameters were generated automatically with the functions of Axwoman. Hierarchical levels of streets were visually represented and the underlying pattern of each city was gotten from the hierarchical representation. Based on street hierarchy, the fifty sample cities were classified into nine groups, wherein cities of the same group had uniform hierarchical levels. Using the hierarchical pattern of each group’s axial lines, the nine city groups were further reclassified into three types. It was found that, for the street network of most sample cities represented with axial lines, not more than 40% of their streets have connectivity larger than the average value. The hierarchical representation also revealed that streets with high connectivity, which provide greater accessibility, were only minorities in the sample cities. Moreover, minor streets with high connectivity were almost distributed in city centers. In some of the studied cities, axial lines made better representation of the hierarchical patterns of streets, while in others, it did not provide a suitable way of uncovering urban patterns compared to natural roads. A limitation of axial lines manifested in this study was that it chopped curved roads into several segments, thus, disrupting the continuity of streets. In general, axial lines can provide a way to uncover urban patterns. They have meaningful effect to city residents and these patterns can help people gain better understanding of the urban structure. In addition, the hierarchical patterns of streets can be used to model pedestrian and traffic flows, predict crime occurrences, and make spatial plans. The hierarchical representation of streets can also contribute to people’s wayfinding performance.

‘Norrtullsgatan Living Street’ is a public life investigation and design proposal to increase accessibility and attractiveness for people along Norrtullsgatan in Vasastaden, Stockholm. It is a response to the Levande Stockholm Programme, an urban place-making strategy to test potential pedestrian streets by restricting traffic and introducing pop-up furniture during the summer and winter months to create pedestrian-friendly environments. Vasastaden is located North of the city center with the major public transport hub of Odenplan and a significant number of people walking along its narrow sidewalks towards Drottninggatan. This area is an important pedestrian zone that connects the city center to other parts of Stockholm with great potential to activate already existing public spaces and create a network of livable streets. This thesis aims to investigate possible long-term strategies based on public life studies, a comprehensive street analysis, and urban place-making interventions that focus on pedestrians, cyclists, and the experience at the street level to create a ‘living street’. This project wants to strengthen and highlight the benefits of walking not only as a choice of mobility but also as a social, economic, and well-being outcome for the city. Moreover, it instigates further the concept of what makes a walkable city. People want to feel comfortable and safe during their walk but they also want to have a pleasurable experience. Urban design qualities, by all means, influence those choices. By following the evaluation of the temporary design during the summer and winter streets, this project re-assess those strategies to proposed permanent design to promote inclusive public spaces. As a result, this thesis emphasizes the importance of design strategies that are well-integrated into a community by taking into consideration site-specific conditions and users. At the same time, it hopes to contribute with input to the already tested pedestrian zones to become meeting places with rich content, high urban qualities, and a strong identity.

This thesis examines the urban morphology of fifty cities using spatial syntax analysis. The analysis compares the urban street networks of European, USA, Islamic and East Asian cities. Street connectivity was the main metric and natural roads were the basis for the analysis. The aim of the study was to analyze determine how sensitive space syntax methods are for uncovering the hierarchical patterns of urban street networks and examining their scale-free and small-world properties. Street data was collected from OpenStreetMap. ArcGIS 10 with the Axwoman extension was used to study the hierarchical levels of street networks. Matlab provided the platform to examine the scale-free property of street data. Pajek software was used to measure the small-world behavior. Based on the hierarchical representation, the fifty sample cities were classified into different groups and their scale-free and small-world properties were studied. From a traditionally morphological perspective, it was found that some cities in Europe have a close-knit cellular and organic urban morphology. Cities in the USA exhibit gridiron patterns on the whole. Some Islamic cities have special urban structure with houses grouped around the cul-de-sac lanes. Several of the East Asian cities studied also have grid forms. According to the space syntax analysis, urban street networks that have a connectivity value greater than the average value were less than 40%. The results showed that for most cities, the street connectivity distribution follows a power-law distribution and exhibits scale-free properties. Urban street networks of all sample cities were found to have a small-world property. Space syntax cannot detect all of the morphological patterns recognized in traditional morphological studies. The method can, however, efficiently quantify the spatial configuration of a large sample. Space syntax’s topological and scaling metrics thus provide a way to compare urban street networks. These metrics can thus help classify cities according to their street patterns but also contribute to an understanding of human behavior within and thus the design of urban spaces. For example, an urban street network with a small-world property could have high efficiency for traffic flows at local and global levels and should be considered in further study.

[pt] Redes Manhattan Street (MS) têm sido descritas como um arranjo linear bidimensional de nós, semelhante à configuração de ruas e avenidas de Manhattan. O roteamento por deflexão é implementado encaminhando os pacotes que atingem um determinado nó a uma de suas saídas de forma síncrona ou assíncrona. O principal objetivo deste trabalho consiste na simulação e análise de redes totalmente ópticas configuradas segundo a topologia MS. O roteamento por deflexão e o assincronismo são considerados, para evitar complexidade eletrônica e armazenamento de pacotes no domínio óptico. Serão apresentadas as características das redes MS, suas propriedades estruturais e os parâmetros utilizados para analisar seu desempenho. Uma metodologia analítica dedicada a obtenção teórica destes parâmetros será introduzida. Serão apresentados alguns conceitos básicos sobre simulação de redes;diversas simulações da rede proposta utilizando os protocolos UDP e TCP; uma descrição do software que foi utilizado para realizar as simulações; uma comparação entre os resultados obtidos através da simulação e os obtidos através da metodologia analítica; e uma análise do efeito da latência na vazão do protocolo TCP. / [en] Manhattan Street (MS) Networks are bidimensional linear node sets arranged as the avenues and streets of Manhattan. The simulation and analysis of all-optical MS networks is the central target of this paper. In order to avoid using complex electronics and/or optical domain buffers, the deflection routing and the asynchronism are taken into account in the analysis. Deflection routing is performed by conveying incoming packets towards one of the two outputs. The characteristics of MS Networks are presented, along with their structural properties and the parameters used for performance analysis. An analytical methodology for the theoretical obtaining of these parameters is described. Some basic concepts on network simulation are discussed. Several simulations of the proposed network are presented, using both UDP and TCP protocols, and the software used for simulations is also described. The obtained results are compared and discussed with respect to the previously described analytic methodologies. Finally, the effect of network latency on the TCP-protocol throughput is assessed.

The aim of this thesis is to help understand the impact of street network configuration on travel behavior by modeling pedestrian travel to/from rapid transit rail stations. The primary goal is to determine whether and to what extent street connectivity is related to transit walk-mode shares and walking distances after controlling for population density, land-use mix, household income, and car ownership. The data are drawn from all the stations of Atlanta's rapid transit network (MARTA). The research shows that land-use mix and street connectivity around stations are significantly related to the decision to walk for transit. Importantly, the analysis reveals that station environments with higher street densities and more direct connections within 1, 0.5, and 0.25 mile radii are associated with higher proportion of walking shares among station patrons. Furthermore, the results of analyses for walk trip distances suggest that street networks with denser intersections and more linear alignments of road segments support greater walking distance thresholds. Overall, the findings confirm the hypotheses that well structured and differentiated street networks affect not only transit access/egress walk-mode shares but also the distance people are willing to walk to/from a station. Thus, this study provides some encouragement that effective policies designed to encourage new designs with the option to walk will actually support more sustainable cities in which transit systems can become integrated within urban culture.

Cette thèse contribue à interroger le renouvellement des rôles et statuts associés aux grands axes de circulation en milieu urbain et ce, au double prisme des théories urbanistiques qui ont pu les prendre pour objet, et des démarches de projets participant de leurs transformations effectives dans un contexte prônant le « refaire la ville sur la ville ». Chacun de ces angles d’approche a été plus particulièrement abordé dans une des deux parties constitutives de cette recherche. La première partie est ainsi centrée sur une analyse interprétative des places et valeurs fluctuantes accordées aux différentes typologies de rues dans le champ de l’urbanisme. Celle-ci a permis de mettre l’accent sur certains des ressorts ayant contribué à faire de ces typologies spécifiques de voies, des « angles morts » des principaux modèles théoriques d’organisation et de hiérarchisation du réseau viaire. Leur reconsidération amène dès lors à plus largement s’interroger sur l’étendue des potentialités programmatiques et projectuelles induites par ces évolutions de même que sur les formes potentiellement prises par un tel réinvestissement. Celles-ci ont été plus particulièrement traitées dans le cadre de la seconde partie, fondée sur une investigation plus « empirique » de cet enjeu, et articulée autour d’une démarche de « mise en regard » des projets d’High Street 2012 à Londres et de la rue Garibaldi à Lyon. La grille de lecture mobilisée pour leur analyse a permis de faire émerger le constat d’une grande diversité des objectifs et des formes données aux projets actuellement développés sur ces axes, en même temps qu’un renouvellement des ambitions, plus plurielles, qui leur sont associées. / This thesis contributes to question the renewal of the roles and status associated with the mixed-used arterial corridors in urban area and this, trough both the filter of urban planning theories relative to them as well as the project approaches participating in their effective transformation in a context claiming to “built cities on top of cities”. Each of those perspectives have been particularly explored one of the two parts of this research. The first part is thus centered on an interpretative analysis of the places and fluctuating values corresponding to the different street typologies found in urban planning and urban design theories. This bring to light few of the characteristics that participated to bring some specific street typologies in the blind spot of the principal theoretical models of organization and hierarchisation of the street network. Their reconsideration leads then to a larger inquiry about the extend of the potential programs and projects induced by those evolutions and later to the potential forms of such reinvestment. Those latest have been particularly considered within the second part, based on a more “empirical” investigation of those challenges and articulated around the comparison of the London High Street 2012 and the Lyon Garibaldi Street projects. The analytical grid employed helped to reveal a large diversity of the objectives and forms of the various projects developed on those urban axes and on the same time a renewal of the ambitions associated with them, more plurals and composites.