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Tuscany Configurational Atlas: A GIS-Based Multiscale Assessment of Road-Circulation Networks Centralities Hierarchies

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2020 (ICCSA 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 12251))

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Abstract

Digital thematic maps availability has increased with the diffusion of open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) suites, which also had important role in urban and regional sciences revamp throughout the late 1990’s. These methodological innovations led to the conception of network-based data maps oriented to highlight urban scale road-circulation networks configurational properties, that supported comparative studies regarding cities’ morphologies and their representation as complex systems. However, significant hindrances persist for the construction of very large road-circulation network datasets, such as those suitable to regional and supra-regional scale analyses. Owing to their sheer sizes, modelling these expanses require extensive processing times, which impact on research prospects. Data precision is a concern as well, since generalization processes, whereas can reduce computing complexity, oftentimes render comparisons amongst different scales inaccurate, due to certain road structures non-representation. Research requirements for a comparable and accurate multiscale database, suited to evaluate circulation networks configurational properties of centrality, prompted construction of the Tuscany Configurational Atlas as an experiment. Intended as a set of GIS-based digital thematic maps and data repository, it depicts closeness and betweenness centralities hierarchies of the Tuscan Region road-infrastructure in regional, provincial and municipality scales. This paper summarizes the scope and methodological steps to construct this Configurational Atlas, while reducing regional-wide dataset-related issues. Furthermore, it discusses its contribution as a spatial representation, and evaluates its prospects as an analytical instrument and database. Concluding remarks define forthcoming improvements to be done regarding usability, such as its implementation in a WebGIS suite.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The most distinguished initiative in this aspect is the Space Syntax OpenMapping [12]. Created in 2018, it consists of an open data pre-processed spatial network model of Great Britain.

  2. 2.

    While OSM data is available for the Tuscan Region, the CTR data provides a homogeneous dataset that requires less of accessory data generalization. This graph is also used to ensure compatibility with the Tuscan Region Ambiental and Territorial Information System (SITA)

  3. 3.

    Buffers are set within those threshold radiuses as greater extents collected many discontinuities, due to Tuscany fragmented territorial division, especially at municipality scale.

  4. 4.

    It is important to remark that sections are not territorially strict, as for network analyses the graphs natural continuities ought to be respected over administrative limits to ensure system wholeness. Hence, road-elements were conserved whenever removal would cause a network gap, even when comprised in a neighboring territorial unit. This adequation was used mainly were road-elements had small segments in another municipality territory.

  5. 5.

    Some municipalities had to be sectioned in two distinct areas due to network discontinuity, as consequence of the Tuscan fragmented territorial division.

  6. 6.

    The Tuscan archipelago islands are referred as independent networks, even when partake to another municipality administrative limits. Spatial data regarding some islet’s road network, absent in Tuscan Region Graph, were incorporated to the database. Elba Island continuous road-circulation network is represented at provincial scale due to its size, even though it is comprised in Livorno administrative limits. All Tuscan provinces (10) and municipalities (273) are represented, apart from Ca’ Raffaello exclave, located in Badia Tedalda municipality (Arezzo Province), which is discontinuous from Tuscan territory, being positioned inside the province of Rimini (Emilia-Romagna Region).

  7. 7.

    Processing time values for an overclocked Intel i7–8700 k (4.7 GHz); 16 GB of RAM.

  8. 8.

    Hillier et al. [25] theorical tests demonstrate that NAIN ranges innately differ, depending on node count and total depth proportions. Therefore, there are no exact ranges for NAIN comparisons, but only approximations between top and bottom values depending on the urban settlement structure.

  9. 9.

    Hillier et al. [25] theoretical tests state that betweenness centralities values can sometimes surpass the 1.5 threshold in specific cases, such as systems that exhibit ample differences between mean and total depth.

  10. 10.

    Total size of the Tuscany Configurational Atlas thematic maps datasets, auxiliary maps and original road graphs is 23 GBs.

  11. 11.

    Groups were created as such to facilitate further incorporation of other regions’ datasets in the Atlas database.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università di Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, 56122, Pisa, PI, Italy

    Diego Altafini & Valerio Cutini

Authors
  1. Diego Altafini
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  2. Valerio Cutini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diego Altafini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  2. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  3. Chair- Center of ICT/ICE, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  4. University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

    Chiara Garau

  5. University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

    Ivan Blečić

  6. Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    David Taniar

  7. Department of Information Science, Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  8. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A. C. Rocha

  9. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Eufemia Tarantino

  10. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Maria Torre

  11. Department of Neurology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Yeliz Karaca

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Altafini, D., Cutini, V. (2020). Tuscany Configurational Atlas: A GIS-Based Multiscale Assessment of Road-Circulation Networks Centralities Hierarchies. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2020. ICCSA 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12251. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58808-3_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58808-3_22

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58808-3

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