Research: Urban street mobility and air pollution
Collecting data on walking, driving and air quality to identify links between pollution and how people move around cities.
Summary
Research summary
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March 2020 to 2022
This project aims to provide insights into what people do when faced with air polluted in cities in China by collecting data on walking, driving and pollution using sensors.
Air pollution is one of the main public health challenges in China, and in 2016 the central government launched the Healthy China 2030 initiative to tackle it. Many Chinese cities - including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou - made follow-up action plans to improve their urban environments.
To know how to plan, design and govern a ‘healthy’ street, we need evidence about how pedestrians respond to polluted environments.
Current data from local government and organisations is insufficiently detailed for analysis at a micro level for individual streets. And walking and driving, as dynamic processes, require video data analysis.
We will use sensors and artificial intelligence to record and analyse the patterns between mobility and pollution, and share our data, methods and applications for use in the UK, China and beyond.
Local government, environmental protection agencies and planning organisations will be able to use the data to inform urban planning, and promote public awareness of environmental health risks.
Research outputs
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Academic papers, reports and other research outputs will be linked from here when they are published.
Team
Research team
Lead researchers
Collaborating with:
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Prof Suhong Zhou, Sun Yat-sen University, China
Funding
With funding from
The Royal Society
Natural Science Foundation of China
Contact
Contact us
For general enquiries about our Urban Environments research group, you can contact its lead Dr Jennifer Rowntree.
