INTEGRATED MODELING OF ROAD TRAFFIC EMISSIONS: APPLICATION TO LISBON AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The application of three distinct modeling tools to deal with Lisbon atmospheric problems is presented. Information and forecasting system for private and public transport (VISUM), Transport Emission Model for Line Sources (TREM) and Variable Dispersion (VADIS) models were used to characterize the traffic fluxes, to quantify the emission amounts, and finally to evaluate the air quality in a specific area of the city characterized by intense traffic respectively. The results show the benefit of integrated use of the modeling tools VISUM and TREM to estimate the atmospheric emissions induced by traffic. On the other hand, the results obtained with VADIS are in acceptable agreement with the measured air quality data.     

INFORMAL SYSTEMS THINKING OR SYSTEMS THEORY

Systems thinking is the practice of holistic thinking, which can be informal or based on systems theory. Success has always depended on holistic rather than one-sided thinking. Empirical findings about the innovative society can exemplify this statement, though there seems to be no universal agreement as to what the basic attributes of systems thinking are, and we offer a summary of them. To test them, we investigated an industrial latecomer country and found that the understanding of both the innovative society and the systemic thinking are rare: one-sidedness prevails. What do we do to come closer to holistic thinking? Neither the General Systems Theory nor most other systems theories (except the Dialectical Systems Theory) provide a methodology supportive of holism; however, the case of the visionary companies proves that informal systems thinking can be very powerful. Hence, systems theories should work more on informal systems thinking.