The problem: Proprietary GIS software

Geocomputation with R

Future directions of travel in FOSS4G

• Integration (e.g. R package qgisprocess, R/Python crossover)
• New approaches, e.g. GeoRust

The problem - Transport

Source: 'Inside the black box' report

• Transport models were designed to support growth in car ownership and reduce journey times (Boyce and Williams, 2015)

• 21^st^ Century priorities are very different

  • Climate science, air pollution and health force a shift in focus
  • The concepts of 'participatory democracy' and 'citizen science' mean there is a need for collaborative solutions

The solution - Transport

New technologies mean that open access transport models are possible

Source: A/B Street, free, open source, gamified transport planning software github.com/dabreegster/abstreet

Open Source Transport Tools

Source: Lovelace (2021), see github.com/Robinlovelace/open-gat

From open source to open access

• Transport models represent a leverage point in transport systems
• New paper, Lovelace et al (2020) describes the emergence and possibilities for 'open access models'

What is science?

Existing products

User support

Getting help is vital for leaning/improving software

"10-Hour Service Pack $2,000" (source: caliper.com/tcprice.htm)

Online communities

• gis.stackexchange.com has 21,314 questions

• r-sig-geo has 1000s of posts

• RStudio's Discourse community has 65,000+ posts already!

• No transport equivalent (e.g. earthscience.stackexchange.com is in beta)

• Potential for a Discourse forum or similar: transport is not (just) GIS

Building open source software

From prototype to deployment

• Example: the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT.bike) (Lovelace et al. 2017)

Geocomputation in the PCT

• It's all reproducible, e.g.:
• Find commuting desire lines in West Yorkshire between 1 and 3 km long in which more people drive than cycle:

# Set-up, after installing R and checking out www.pct.bike:
u = "https://github.com/ITSLeeds/TDS/releases/download/0.1/desire_lines.geojson"
library(dplyr)
library(sf)
desire_lines = read_sf(u)

Visualising data

A fundamental part of data science is being able to understand your data.

That requires visualisation, R is great for that:

plot(desire_lines)

library(tmap)
tm_shape(desire_lines) + tm_lines("all")

Processing data with code

• Now we have data in our computer, and verified it works, we can use it

• Which places are most car dependent?

car_dependent_routes = desire_lines %>% 
  mutate(percent_drive = car_driver / all * 100) %>% 
  filter(rf_dist_km < 3 & rf_dist_km > 1)

Checking the results:

b = c(0, 25, 50, 75)
tm_shape(car_dependent_routes) +
  tm_lines(col = "percent_drive", lwd = "all", scale = 5, breaks = b, palette = "-inferno")

Example II

The ActDev project:

• A/B Street - R integration, see https://github.com/a-b-street/abstr

Get involved

• Support open source solutions indirectly

  • Sign-up to platforms for sharing and collaborating on open source projects, such as https://github.com/
  • Preferentially use, cite and endorse open access and open source solutions
  • Find the open source tool best suited to your needs and communicate constructively with the developers
  • Communicate ways to improve open source solutions, e.g. by commenting on 'issue trackers' on forums such as GitHub

• Download, install and play with open source software

  • R/RStudio, great for data analysis but also interactive visualisation and, increasingly, transport planning workflows
  • Have a play with open access transport tools such as A/B Street and the PCT, which can run on your computer or in the browser

References

Boyce, D.E., Williams, H.C.W.L., 2015. Forecasting Urban Travel: Past, Present and Future. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Beimborn, E., Kennedy, R., 1996. Inside the Blackbox: Making Transportation Models Work for Livable Communities. Citizens for a Better Environment.

Lovelace, R., Parkin, J., Cohen, T., 2020. Open access transport models: A leverage point in sustainable transport planning. Transport Policy 97, 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.06.015

Thanks

Contact me at r. lovelace at leeds ac dot uk (email), @robinlovelace

Check-out links to my work at robinlovelace.net

Thanks to everyone building a open and collaborative communities

Thanks to the University of Leeds and the Institute for Transport Studies