Tuscany configurational atlas: a GIS-based multiscale assessment of road-circulation networks centralities hierarchies

Digital thematic maps availability has increased with the diffusion of open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) suites, which also had important role in urban and regional sciences revamp throughout the late 1990’s. These methodological innovations led to the conception of network-based data maps oriented to highlight urban scale road-circulation networks configurational properties, that supported comparative studies regarding cities’ morphologies and their representation as complex systems. However, significant hindrances persist for the construction of very large road-circulation network datasets, such as those suitable to regional and supra-regional scale analyses. Owing to their sheer sizes, modelling these expanses require extensive processing times, which impact on research prospects. Data precision is a concern as well, since generalization processes, whereas can reduce computing complexity, oftentimes render comparisons amongst different scales inaccurate, due to certain road structures non-representation. Research requirements for a comparable and accurate multiscale database, suited to evaluate circulation networks configurational properties of centrality, prompted construction of the Tuscany Configurational Atlas as an experiment. Intended as a set of GIS-based digital thematic maps and data repository, it depicts closeness and betweenness centralities hierarchies of the Tuscan Region road-infrastructure in regional, provincial and municipality scales. This paper summarizes the scope and methodological steps to construct this Configurational Atlas, while reducing regional-wide dataset-related issues. Furthermore, it discusses its contribution as a spatial representation, and evaluates its prospects as an analytical instrument and database. Concluding remarks define forthcoming improvements to be done regarding usability, such as its implementation in a WebGIS suite.