PROPOLIS: Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport (2001-2004)

The project PROPOLIS ("Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport for Increasing Urban Sustainability") belonged to the Key Action "City of Tomorrow" of the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development of the European Union. The objectives of the project were further development of theories on the interaction between transport and spatial development, improvement of planning methods and simulation and evaluation techniques and the identification of planning measures to improve the sustainability of urban regions in Europe. For this, existing land use and transport models of seven urban regions in Europe (Bilbao, Brussels, Dortmund, Helsinki, Naples, Swindon, Vicenza) were further developed and used to forecast and evaluate the impacts of different policies on the sustainability of spatial development in urban regions. For more information see the page PROPOLIS.

PROPOLIS was a cooperation of the Institute for Spatial Planning at the University of Dortmund (IRPUD) with S&W and partners from Finland, England, Italy, Spain and Belgium. The project followed on from the SPARTACUS project, which was completed in 1998. The tasks of IRPUD and S&W in PROPOLIS were to identify the interrelationships between environmental quality and location behaviour and to apply the IRPUD model to test the measures for the Dortmund city region.

The final report of PROPOLIS is available at:

Lautso, K., Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M., Sheppard, I., Steadman, P., Martino, A., Domingo, R., Gayda, S. (2004): PROPOLIS: Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport for Increasing Urban Sustainability. PROPOLIS Final Report. Helsinki: LT Consultants.

More information about PROPOLIS is available in

Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M. (2007): The PROPOLIS model for assessing urban sustainability. In: Deakin, M., Mitchell, G., Nijkamp, P., Vreeker, R. (Hg.): Sustainable Urban Development. Volume 2. The Environmental Assessment Methods. London, New York: Routledge, 306-326.

Lautso, K., Wegener, M. (2007): Integrated strategies for sustainable urban development. In: Marshall, S., Banister, D. (Hg.): Land Use and Transport. European Research towards Integrated Policies. London: Elsevier, 153-175.

Schwarze, B., Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M. (2005): Assessment of integrated strategies for sustainability in Dortmund. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning (CUPUM 2005), University College London.

Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M. (2004): Evaluating urban sustainability using land-use transport interaction models. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research 4 (3), 251-272.

Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M. (2003): Modelling urban sustainability. In: International Journal of Urban Sciences 7(1), 47-64.

Spiekermann, K. (2003): The PROPOLIS Raster Module. Deliverable D4 of PROPOLIS. Dortmund: Spiekermann & Wegener Urban and Regional Research.