Spatial Simulation LabLaunched in 2013, the doctoral college URBEM (Urban Energy and Mobility System) is an interdisciplinary collaboration between TU Wien and Vienna‘s public utilities operator Wiener Stadtwerke. The college comprises the PhD research projects of nine postgraduate students, co-supervised by professors from six faculties of TU Wien and experts from Wiener Stadtwerke and its subsidiaries. Taking Vienna as an example and adopting a holistic, interdisciplinary approach, URBEM has researched and developed an interactive environment to analyse scenarios for a future „sustainable, liveable, affordable city with a secure energy supply“. A key factor is the combination of economic and sociological research methods with technical analysis of buildings, thermal and electricity supply infrastructure and mobility systems. Visualization and distributed computing allow user-friendly operation of the prototype and presentation of the results.
The project is a cooperation between the following TU Wien partner institutes:
- Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering – Institute of Building Construction and Technology – Research Division of Building Physics and Sound Protection (E206-02) (project lead)
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – Institute of Energy Systems and Electrical Drives (E370)
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – Institute of Energy Systems and Electrical Drives – Energy Economics Group (E370-3)
- Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering – Institute of Energy Systems and Thermodynamics (E302)
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – Telecommunications (E389)
- Faculty of Architecture and Planning – Department of Spatial Planning – Sociology (E280-6)
- Faculty of Informatics – Institute of Information Systems Engineering – Research Division of Distributed Systems (E194-02)
- Faculty of Civil Engineering – Institute of Transportation – Research Division of Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering (E230-01)