Transport
planning has always been a complex and multi-disciplinary enterprise
requiring wide-ranging skills and methods. Proliferating data sources,
tools and policy demands — including fast and fair decarbonisation and
the need to make active travel the natural choice for everyday trips in
cities worldwide — has increased the demands on transport planners and
researchers in the field. With burgeoning pressures and options, how to
decide what to do?
This talk will make the case that reproducible
research and open tools are essential ingredients for effective
transport planning in the 21st century. It will map out the landscape of
open tools for transport planning, distinguish between open source and
open access models, and demonstrate how reproducibility is the key not
just for research but also for future-proof, socially sustainable and
high impact transport planning practice. I will draw on my experience
developing, deploying and collaborating on tools such as the Propensity
to Cycle Tool for England and Wales (publicly available at www.pct.bike), the Network Planning Tool for Scotland (publicly available at www.npt.scot) and the Biclar tool for Portugal (publicly available at biclar.tmlmobilidade.pt.
Each is used to inform strategic transport planning decisions, raising
questions around the use of new technologies and collaborations with
practitioner and advocacy communities to maximise the long term positive
impacts of transport research. The talk will not answer all of these
questions but it will surely generate debate and hopefully provide
insight into how the field could develop as the data revolution
accelerates.
Blurb:
Robin Lovelace is Professor of Transport Data Science at the Leeds Institute for Transport Studies (ITS)
and Head of Data Science at the UK government agency Active Travel
England. Robin specializes in data science and geocomputation, with a
focus on developing geographic methods applied to modeling transport
systems, active travel, and decarbonisation. Robin has experience not
only researching but deploying transport models in inform sustainable
policies and more effective use of transport investment, including as
Lead Developer of the Propensity to Cycle Tool (see www.pct.bike),
the basis of strategic cycle network plans nationwide. Robin has led
numerous data science projects for organizations ranging from the
Department for Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland to the
World Bank.
This hybrid event can be attended in-person or online via Zoom.
