Managing urban development : a simulation approach for coping with change at a municipal parking structure

• Main Author: White, Stephen James
• Other Authors: Randhawa, Sabah
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Parking garages > Oregon > Salem > Planning > Computer simulation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/37326

Public construction projects are frequently presented as occurring in complex social, political and economic settings described as being uncertain. In public administration, this uncertainty is cited as a cause for shifting from the so called "rational-comprehensive" model of policy and decision making toward an "incremental" or "mixed-scanning" approach. None of these models provides a panacea for dealing with the influences of the diverse and dynamic social and political attitudes, ethics and values that are inherent in urban settings. Where such uncertainty becomes unmanageable scientific experts are called upon to translate the problem into technical or economic language that lends itself to consideration by traditional management science analysis. This thesis describes one such translation of an urban transportation development project in the context of the political and philosophical exigencies which required its undertaking. A computer simulation approach to modelling the operation of a two-story underground parking structure, named the Capitol Mall Parking Structure, is described as well as the model's results and sensitivity in coping with various uncertainties posed by the project's decision makers. === Graduation date: 1992