Transport Committee Academic Engagement Event

Abstract

I will be attending this event to share insights on transport data science and its application to policy. Specifically, I will be discussing my work for Active Travel England on identifying ‘critical issues’—locations that are particularly dangerous for walking, wheeling, and cycling. This work represents a shift from focusing solely on ‘best practice’ to systematically fixing what is broken. I will also be sharing my approach to estimating baseline walking, cycling, and car traffic at the segment level, currently being piloted in the West Midlands with the potential to scale nationally.

The Transport Committee is holding an academic engagement event to strengthen connections with the research community and discuss pertinent transport policy issues.

The event aims to: - Give members of the Committee an opportunity to hear about the latest academic research. - Grow the Committee’s understanding of and connections to the research community. - Strengthen researcher understanding of the work of the Committee and how to get involved.

I have been invited based on my research expertise in: - Research methods and data science - Local and regional transport planning - Travel behaviour and behaviour change - Decarbonisation

I plan to discuss my ongoing work with Active Travel England, particularly the update to evidence on “critical issues” for walking, wheeling, and cycling. This involves a move towards identifying and remediating dangerous infrastructure rather than just promoting best practice. I am also developing methods to estimate baseline traffic levels for all modes at the road segment level, a project that is currently focused on the West Midlands but has national scalability.