Residential mobility significantly influences all other urban processes: the real estate market, the location of economic activities and public services. Especially, the residential mobility influences the travel patterns and demand for transportation services. Therefore, modeling residential mobility should be regarded as the precondition for “smart” spatial and transportation planning. Recent approaches to modeling of urban processes regard the urban systems from the perspective of individual human actors, their preferences, decisions and activities. The micro-simulation random utility discrete choice models explicitly represent decision-making processes of individual actors in their individual contexts and allow the residential mobility factors to be analyzed on the level of individual actors. The paper describes the application of experimental micro- simulation model on the study of residential mobility in the Prague metropolitan region. It examines existing data from the point of view of availability and suitability for micro-simulation modeling, provides technical guidance for the application of micro-simulation models for scientific research and the practice of urban planning and illustrates possible outcomes of the micro- simulation modeling. I. INTRODUCTION URING the last 50 years, urban simulation modeling evolved from mechanistic and aggregated approaches to the disaggregated behavioral approaches of micro-simulation and agent-based models that more explicitly represent the decision making of individual actors. The disaggregated behavioral approaches are advantageous for a) being explicit about the decision making of actors, b) representing the urban processes on micro-level, c) being theoretically sound and d) using the growing amount of available micro-data. Especially, the micro-simulation models allow analysis of the factors influencing the behavior of individual actors in their specific individual contexts on the very local level and thus model the urban processes as outcomes of the independent behavior of a number of inhabitants. The trend towards improved behavioral realism is motivated Funding from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic within the framework of grant P104/12/1948 is gratefully acknowledged. Jakub Vorel, Faculty of Architecture, CTU in Prague, Thákurova 9, 166 34 Praha 6 – Dejvice, Czech Republic (e-mail: jakub.vorel@gis.cvut.cz). Daniel Franke, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, Praha 6 – Suchdol, 165 21, Czech Republic (e-mail: franke@fzp.czu.cz). Martin Šilha, Faculty of Architecture, CTU in Prague, Thákurova 9, 166 34 Praha 6 – Dejvice, Czech Republic (e-mail: silhamar@fa.cvut.cz). by the need to study and predict urban processes through the decision making of human actors. The explicit and more elaborated representation of characteristics and behavior of individual actors is in accordance with the current tendency of urban (spatial) planning in liberal and civil society to reflect a variety of interests in the planning process. The advent of the “big data” society represents another motivational factor for application of disaggregated urban simulation models as it implies a growing demand for analytical and data-mining tools. The Residential Location Choice Model (RLCM) presented in the paper is one of the experimental urban simulation models created and applied in the project “Simulation models for assessment of spatial development of cities” 1 that provided the guidance for application of comprehensive urban simulation modeling in the Czech Republic. The application of RLCM had following objectives: a) to review existing data from the point of view of availability and suitability for micro-simulation modeling; b) to provide technical guidance for the application of urban micro-simulation models for scientific research and the practice of urban planning; c) to illustrate possible outcomes of the micro-simulation models. II. PHENOMENON OF RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY According to the stress-resistance theory the residential mobility as a behavioral phenomenon is typically analyzed and modeled in two steps: a) the residential relocation decision, and b) the residential location choice. Each step is assumed to be influenced by a different set of factors (Bogue, 1973). The stress level caused by the discordance between housing needs, aspirations and expectations on one side and actual housing conditions on the other side are the primary “push factors” of relocation decisions. Demographic events, such as marriage or the birth of a child are the most significant push factors as they imply changes in housing needs. In the second decision step a new residence is searched and 1 The project P104/12/1948 was funded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. The experimental urban simulation models created in the project addressed all the primary urban processes: the process of demographic change, residential and businesses mobility, monetary valuation of residential characteristics and land-use change processes. Behavioral approach to modeling residential mobility in the Prague metropolitan region Jakub Vorel, Daniel Franke, Martin Šilha D