On the consistency of urban cellular automata models based on hexagonal and square cells

• Published in: Environment and planning. B, Urban analytics and city science Urban analytics and city science, 2021-05, Vol.48 (4), p.845-860
• Main Authors: Nugraha, Aditya Tafta, Waterson, Ben J, Blainey, Simon P, Nash, Frederick J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2399-8083; 2399-8091
• DOI: 10.1177/2399808319898501

Cellular automata have found extensive applications in the modelling of urban systems. Calculations in cellular automata models are based on cell centroids and therefore cellular automata models are sensitive to the choices of cell size and shape. While the effect of cell size for urban simulation has been studied, discussions on the effect of cell shape on urban cellular automata models have been limited. Applications in other fields suggest there are advantages of using hexagonal cells over square cells, yet most urban cellular automata models use square cells. Using connectivity indices from graph theory, experiments in this study compared models based on hexagonal and square cells to examine the potential advantage of hexagonal cells in urban cellular automata models. This paper finds that simulation results from the model with hexagonal cells are more consistent and concludes that hexagonal cells would increase the robustness of model simulation.