Assessing Transit Oriented Development using Satellite Imagery: Riyadh vs. Phoenix

Abstract

As urbanization becomes the way of the future, the demands on the cities are becoming more urgent, with an increased awareness of the need for sustainability and resilience, making the utilization of today’s Technology and data critical in decision-making and planning. In the first part of this thesis, I combine a few of these techniques and datasets to explore their ability to provide a helpful assessment of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). This research assesses the transit-oriented characteristics in two cities, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Pheonix City, Arizona, US. Both share many similarities in urban design and climate. I use high-resolution satellite imagery with Computer Vision methods to detect the built area around public transit stations to measure the building density and, combined with land use data, measure the residential and nonresidential density. Both of these measurements are important indicators of the success of a public transportation system. I found that out of the two different building detection methods, the one based on deep learning techniques was more precise, with better generalization abilities. While the method based on classical image processing techniques is more sensitive to threshold choices, with considerable variability when tested on different years. Both methods, however, were able to give a useful prediction of buildings. And from their results, I found that Phoenix City has a building density of less than 50%, even around the busiest stations downtown stations. Riyadh, on the other hand, is more compact and with at least more than 50% of the land being developed. In the second part, I formulate a System Dynamics that is validated by Phoenix’s actual ridership for the 2010-2020 period and predicts transit ridership in Riyadh. The model closely approximated Phoenix’s ridership up until 2016. The Riyadh model estimated that the ridership would start with six million riders, surpassing the predictions of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) of 1.6 million initially. The results of both parts indicate that given that Riyadh is more densely built with a smaller area and has a more extensive transportation system and bigger population, this should serve as an incentive to promote a more transit-oriented built environment by increasing walkability and dense mixed-use developments throughout the city.