Amanda Terpo

XXXIII Cycle - (A.A. 2017-2018)

IDAUP
Home Institution: Polis University Tirana
Scholarship (with research contract)
Curriculum: Urban Planning (ICAR05)
Research Topic: Transit Oriented Development
Tutor DA-UNIFE: Luca Emanueli
Tutor Polis University: Elizabeta Susaj
Nationality: Albanian

Email: trpmnd@unife.it

Profile

Biography

Amanda Terpo is an Urban planner in Albania, Born in the city of Tirana in the 1990’s. She is a passionate multidisiplinary planner that has worked in strategic planning,transport and GIS projects.With a MSc. degree From Polis University, Faculty of Urban Planning and Management from sept 2010 till sept 2015.Some of her experiences include the Regulatory Plan of the Municipality Bajram Curri, with "Polis" University and Co-PLAN (Institute for Habitat Development) In October 2014 until January 2015 has conducted an Internship at the Ministry of Urban Development and Tourism, in which has contributed to the development of a guidance document on the methodology for addressing the phenomenon of informality.During December 2015-August 2016 she has a part of the working group for drafting the General Local Plan of Shkodra Municipality here she worked as an urban planner and GIS experts. From 10-28 July 2017, she was a participant in a Three Weeks Post-Graduate Diploma Course / Land Markets and Informal Settlement Regularization, she goes in The Netherlands with an Erasmus+ Scholarship. In the city of Rotterdam. Finally, from January 22 – (On going) she as part of the team is working on Drafting the local General Plan of Dropull Municipality.In her free time, she deals with objects design from furniture to jewelry. She is now part of POLIS staff and works as an assistant lecturer at Polis University.In November 2017 she starts the International Ph.D. course at Polis University. She is currently carrying out her research studies around Transport Planning Policies and Urban development.

Research skills
Transport policies | Urban and Regional Planning | Mobility planning | GIS and data management | Interdisciplinary Research

Scientific activities

ORCID ID:
0000-0002-4701-7323

IRIS UNIFE ID:
rp51980

Doctoral research

TOD (Transit Oriented Development) model for developing countries: Case of Tirana

Transit oriented development (TOD) is a viable model for transportation and land use integration in many developed and rapidly developing cities of the world. “TOD is a straightforward concept: concentrate a mix of moderately dense and pedestrian-friendly development around transit stations to promote transit riding, increased walk and bicycle travel, and other alternatives to the use of private cars” Transit-oriented development "reduces reliance on cars," improves transit service and promotes development "without adding to sprawl" This research will focus on the exploration of “Transit Oriented development” as an instrument, in an attempt to become a catalyst in influencing cities development. The relevance of this research stands in identifying the key factors and guidelines for “rapidly developing cities” by establishing a base and creating a non-single standard model of planning in developing cities such as Tirana. Tirana is the capital of Albania and is currently facing difficult challenges duo to a total regime change and inner migration that started in the late 90’s. In this context, the “Transit Oriented Development” can be seen as the core model to promote, guide and develop through transport. This study will include an overview on policies, land use changes and economic principles that combined with objectives from “Transit oriented development” will provide an improvement on sustainable urban growth policies. This research is done under the assumption that creating a model for implementing Transit oriented development in the case of Tirana will promote competitive cities, guide feature development and without adding to sprawl. The regime changes and the free movement of people started to create large immigration trends and large concentrations of people in the main cities, thus inducing disparities between cities. Statistical data suggests that more than 60% of the people live in urban areas and only 40% of them in rural areas (INSTAT, 2016). The externality of this phenomena is the concentration of this number of people in the rural and peri-urban areas of the cities (occupying mostly agricultural land, in 80% of the cases), in lack of affordability of housing in the urban areas. Also a previously non-existing market did not know how to address this phenomena resorting to large numbers of informal settlements located far from the center and with no facilities, amenities and infrastructure to support their new living status.

Keywords
Transit Oriented Development | Transport enabling sustainable urban growth | catalyst model development | competitive cities | Urban Sprawl