| This dissertation is designed to develop a unified housing market and transportation simulation model by synthesizing and extending existing models to simulate the equilibrium effects on residential and commercial real estate markets in metropolitan areas. This study is concerned with how the related models can be unified without sacrificing the theoretical integrity. We have attempted to synthesize an operational simulation model which can be calibrated with real data, solved on a computer and applied to specific policy analytic questions.; The model consists of four submodels which are part of a simultaneous process mutually consistent to land use and transportation forecasts to identify the issues and to provide a reasonable approach for their resolution. These submodels are a model of households, a model of firms, a model of network equilibrium and a model of investors.; This study focused exclusively on designing computational algorithms for solving the short run and long run versions of the unified model. To solve this unified model, we developed and compared various algorithms such as the "sequential", "iterative" and "simultaneous" algorithms. The most efficient algorithm turned out to be the "simultaneous" algorithm which solves all the equations except travel network equilibrium equations, simultaneously. To get the equilibrium results, network travel times were adjusted by taking the simple average of two consecutive outer iterations.; Although only small problems were solved in this dissertation, the model can be used to solve larger problems as well. Considering the rapidly developing computing hardware environment, the memory requirements of the program is no longer a serious concern, but the speed of the machine to be used determines the size of problem that can be solved.; We have tested the role of agglomeration effects in retailing within this unified long run model by adopting the hypothesis that shoppers spend more money per square foot of shopping space in bigger shopping districts than they do in smaller ones. As more people visit and spend money in agglomerated places, the demand for shopping floor space increases. As a result, there is more shopping floor space in equilibrium, in such places and commercial rents are higher. |
