Simulation of the

commercial market
evolution in a city
Carlos Soriano Gustavo Patow

Problem: Content Creation

Historical Reconstruction: Pompeii

Problem: Content
Entertainment
- TokioCreation
from
Cars 2

Problem: Content
Creation
Entertainment London from Cars 2

Problem: Content Creation

So much for
geometry
What about LIFE?
(urban life)

Objective

To simulate the
evolution of the
commercial structure in
a modern city

More specifically
Given an initial distribution
of shops,
Study the natural
commercial evolution
And the evolution when larger
commercial areas, like
malls, are introduced

Huff model
The Huff model [Huf63] is a
measure of the attraction
each commerce has on
potential consumers

Huff model

Tij distance
Urban Distance
A*
Pedestrians
Cars
Public transportation

Observation: Tij Tji

Simulation
We use an agent-based
simulation to determine
how these aspects affect
their choices

Simulation Algorithm
1. Start from an initial
shop population
2. Assess the base income
for each shop

Simulation Algorithm
3. After a given simulation
time, the system decides
whether
The shop has retained an
income such that it can
continue operating
Or has gone bankrupt

Barcelona 1897

Barcelona 1932

Barcelona 1932

Discussion (I)
It partially predicts the
evolution of the city of
Barcelona from 1897 to
1932
Taking into account the
introduction of the national
markets

Discussion (II)
Correctly predicts average
behaviors at large distances
from the markets
But fails to predict the
"stickiness" effect resulting on
the attractiveness of the
markets over themselves, but
also over the surrounding area
It is left as future work to add

Conclusions
We have presented an algorithm to predict
the evolution of shops and markets in a
modern city over time
Based on
The Huff gravitation estimation
Simulation in terms of the urban distance from
prospective customers to all the shops
Sampling techniques to generate a population
of agents/customers that shop at selected
entities
Keep track of the income evolution

Future Work
Add more general urban
descriptors
E.g., a la Space Syntax by Bill
Hillier

Add expressiveness to
reproduce more phenomena
(e.g. stickiness)

Simulation of the commercial market evolution in a city

Thanks!
Questions?