UrbanSim and the Urban Data Science Toolkit developed through a research program led by Paul Waddell and sustained by academic collaborators, public research sponsors, planning agencies, and later work through UrbanSim Inc. This page records major sources of that support and recognizes the people and institutions that contributed to the work.
The entries below distinguish competitive research awards from agency-sponsored implementations and company-administered research. Funding acknowledgment does not imply current sponsorship or endorsement of UDST, its projects, or UrbanSim Inc.
Paul Waddell served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on six NSF projects that supported the development of UrbanSim and closely related work in software architecture, public participation, uncertainty analysis, artificial intelligence, and urban visualization.
Amounts below are total obligated awards reported by NSF unless an institutional share is stated.
| Period | Award | Project | Investigator role | Award amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999–2001 | CMS-9818378 | Reusable Modeling Components for Simulating Land Use, Transportation, and Land Cover | Paul Waddell, PI; Marina Alberti, Alan Borning, and G. Scott Rutherford, co-PIs | $439,357 |
| 2001–2004 | EIA-0090832 | Digital Government: Software Architectures for Microsimulation of Urban Development, Transportation, and Environmental Impact | Alan Borning, PI; David Notkin and Paul Waddell, co-PIs | $615,000 |
| 2001–2007 | EIA-0121326 | ITR/PE: Interaction and Participation in Integrated Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Modeling | Alan Borning, PI; David Notkin, Batya Friedman, Paul Waddell, and Zoran Popovic, co-PIs | $3,524,000 |
| 2006–2010 | IIS-0534094 | Modeling Uncertainty in Land Use and Transportation Policy Impacts: Statistical Methods, Computational Algorithms, and Stakeholder Interaction | Alan Borning, PI; Adrian Raftery and Paul Waddell, co-PIs | $773,978 |
| 2007–2012 | IIS-0705898 | RI: Dynamic Discrete Choice Networks—An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Modeling Dynamic Travel Behavior | Alan Borning, PI; David Layton, Dieter Fox, and Paul Waddell, co-PIs | $931,964 |
| 2010–2014 | IIS-0964412, with IIS-0964302 | Collaborative Research: Integrating Behavioral, Geometrical and Graphical Modeling to Simulate and Visualize Urban Areas | UC Berkeley: Paul Waddell, PI, and Michael Jordan, co-PI; Purdue: Daniel Aliaga, PI, and Bedrich Benes, co-PI | $899,818 combined; $450,000 UC Berkeley share |
Two broader NSF projects connected this research program with land-cover change, real-estate development, urban ecosystems, and biodiversity. Together with BCS-0120024, the awards documented on this page include seven on which Paul Waddell served as PI or formal co-PI.
- BCS-0120024, BE/CNH: Modeling Interactions Among Urban Development, Land-Cover Change, and Bird Diversity (2001–2006; $1,128,818). Marina Alberti was PI; John Marzluff, Paul Waddell, and Mark Handcock were co-PIs.
- BCS-0508002, BE/CNH: Urban Landscape Patterns: Complex Dynamics and Emergent Properties (2005–2010; $1,448,862). Marina Alberti was PI. NSF's public award record lists Charles Redman, John Marzluff, Jianguo Wu, and Mark Handcock as the four formal co-PIs. The University of Washington project record also identifies Paul Waddell among the project's investigators. Waddell was a senior member of the interdisciplinary project team and contributed to its urban-development and modeling work, but the available NSF record does not identify him as a formal co-PI.
EPA STAR award R831837, Integrating Land Use, Transportation, and Air Quality Modeling (2004–2008), supported the integration of land-use, travel-demand, and air-quality models. Paul Waddell served as principal investigator, with Chandra Bhat, David Layton, Maren Outwater, and Ram Pendyala as co-principal investigators. The award was $700,000.
Additional support recorded in Paul Waddell's academic CV includes:
- the European Research Council's SustainCity project, led by Kay Axhausen at ETH Zurich, with Paul Waddell serving as the UC Berkeley principal investigator;
- Federal Highway Administration research on integrated land-use and transportation modeling;
- the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's UrbanSim visualization work for Sustainable Communities Strategies;
- research supported by the California Air Resources Board, the MacArthur Foundation, and University of California programs; and
- regional model development and implementation supported by the Puget Sound Regional Council, Maricopa Association of Governments, Oregon Department of Transportation, Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, and other public agencies.
These projects differed in purpose and contractual form. They are not combined with the competitive research awards above into a single funding total.
Some later research was performed through UrbanSim Inc. rather than through a university or UDST. It is included here to document continuity in the research program, not as funding of the open-source repositories. Contract values are not reported.
Through subcontracts with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, UrbanSim Inc. contributed land-use modeling to integrated research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office. Publicly documented work has included integration of UrbanSim with LBNL's BEAM mobility model and Argonne's POLARIS transportation model. These efforts examined interactions among land use, transportation, buildings, energy use, and emissions. The national laboratories remained the prime contractors and research leads.
See the DOE report on SMART Mobility modeling workflows.
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research selected UrbanSim Inc. to study alternative methods for calculating Fair Market Rents in markets with rapidly rising rents. Paul Waddell was principal investigator, and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation was a research partner. HUD published the resulting Fair Market Rents Trend Component Modeling Technical Report in 2023.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation supported a multi-phase program of housing-market research and model development through UrbanSim Inc. Work began with Metro Vancouver and subsequently included Toronto and the Greater Golden Horseshoe, model-ready national data, and tools for examining housing supply, prices, rents, development feasibility, and policy scenarios. This was a company-administered public-sector engagement rather than funding for UDST.
- Award amounts are historical and are reported only when supported by a public sponsor record.
- Full-project totals and institutional shares are distinguished where applicable.
- Company-administered contract values are omitted.
- Sponsor names are included for acknowledgment and historical accuracy; their inclusion does not imply endorsement.
- Sponsor logos are not used without permission.