Active Transport Options for New Developments Workshop

Source: vignettes/acton-workshop.Rmd

Introduction

  • When: The ACTON Workshop will take place on Friday 13th March, 10:00 - 16:00
    • Policy session: 10:00 - 14:00 including lunch
    • Hackathon: 13:00 - 16:00 including lunch
  • Where: The Institute for Transport Studies, University Road, Leeds, LS2 9JT (see map here)
  • Who: Anyone interested in sustainable transport and land use policy (particularly the sessions before lunch) and people interested in data, code and technologies underlying transport planning tools (particularly the Hackathon after lunch), anyone is welcome at both
  • How to apply: please sign-up on Eventbrite

Two developments in the case study data for Leeds, illustrating differences in provision for active transport

The objectives are to:

  1. Get attendees up-to-speed on progress, and plan the next stages of work

  2. To get opinions on how to ensure the project can have wider impact and provide useful outputs

  3. To consider how ACTON can contribute to future projects

  4. To make progress on ACTON with a focussed coding session tackling problems such as barriers, route severance, and options to improve site accessibility

Agenda

Intro and overview (10:00 - 10:25)

  • overview of ACTON project
  • go round with introductions and interest in the project
  • local policy and planning considerations by David Ellis, WSP (15 minutes)

Policy requirements (10:25 - 11:00)

  • How to improve active transport provision around new developments: a policy perspective by Ray Georgeson (10 minutes)

  • Panel discussion of needs and wants for tools for integrating active transport in new developments (25 minutes)

Break

Data and methods (11:20 - 12:15)

(This will include discussion of progress and expected next steps)

  • Talk on input data and API access from CycleStreets.net (20 minutes)
    • improvements to PlanIt
    • journey routing for cycling - progress on CycleStreets routing algorithm for ‘quiet’ journeys
  • Findings from case study sites by Joey Talbot (15 minutes)
    • accessibility and journey time statistics
    • busyness of route segments
    • barriers and severance
  • Spatial network analysis approaches for walkability by Crispin Cooper (20 minutes)

Next steps (12:15 - 13:00)

  • Overview of outputs so far and next steps by Robin Lovelace (10 minutes)
  • Discussion in small groups of 3-5 (15 minutes)
    • which outputs from the project will be most useful to you?
    • what additional features/data would you like to see in future work?
    • how do we make sure the project is useful for a wider audience?
    • what areas for further development are people most interested in?
  • Feedback from Groups (10 minutes)
  • Individual feedback on tool (10 minutes)

Lunch

Hackathon (14:00 - 16:00)

In this section, for developers, we will go in depth and work on the code for some of the topics discussed above, including:

  • methods for estimating severance and identifying key links to overcome severance
  • journey routing for walking – test out using OpenTripPlanner
  • integrating the outputs of the ACTON project into other tools such as CyIPT and planning tools
  • estimating travel to major trip attractors
  • sketching a user interface to access ACTON data via a webtool, inspired by and building on https://www.streetfocus.uk/