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HABITS

Date

The purpose of HABITS is to design improved policy to mitigate pollutant and inactivity related health burdens through new big data opportunities. Researchers at the University of Leeds will be working in partnership with Newcastle City Council to explore the potential of new Track and Trace (T&T) data to bring health sector benefits alongside transport and planning outcomes.

NCC have expressed difficulties in identifying the wider benefits of transport initiatives, beyond the immediate tactical benefits and sustainability arguments. The Council require tools and data in order to be able to make broader arguments about activity-related health and pollutant exposure; thus allowing them to make stronger and more convincing cases for the schemes to take place.

Three workshops will be held over the duration of the HABITS project that will bring together NCC, academics,  and the wider public sector. The public face of the project will be a website and an online demonstration tool. The policy benefits that will emerge from the work will only be realised to their full potential in the years after the project has concluded. HABITS will produce new knowledge about how T&T data can be interfaced with existing transport models and planning tools that are used to design and evaluate policy and generate new tools that can be used directly by others in both the public and private sectors.

Partners

University of Leeds

Within the University of Leeds, both the Institute for Transport Studies and School of Geography will be involved in HABITS. The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) is a free-standing school at the University of Leeds and has a reputation for research excellence. The School of Geography is recognised as one of the world’s leading geography departments and is renowned for cutting edge research which influences policy across a range of sectors.

Prof. Susan Grant-Muller: view staff profile

Frances Hodgson: view staff profile

Dr Nicolas Malleson: view staff profile

Dr Gillian Harrison: view staff profile

Newcastle City Council

Newcastle City Council is the local government authority for Newcastle upon Tyne, a city in Tyne and Wear, England. The council consists of 78 councillors, three for each of the city’s 26 wards. Newcastle City Council is committed to promoting sustainable transport, and has developed a strategy to promote sustainable transport, and has a number of schemes such as Re-newcastle, Go Smarter to School and Go Smarter to Work.

Robert Snowball: Senior Specialist Transport Planner

 

Find out more here