The collaboration will support Active Travel England and councils to offer schemes that benefit residents.
The Alan Turing Institute has been commissioned to create new software and data science techniques to support local authority delivery of walking, wheeling and cycling schemes, Active Travel England announced.
The collaboration, which will run for 2 years at a total cost of £200,000, will support Active Travel England and councils to deliver schemes that are strongly evidence-based and will deliver the most benefits for residents. This will enable the development of new functionality in the Active Travel Infrastructure Platform (ATIP), which helps councils to map out proposed schemes and see the impact they could have locally.
These new tools will be paired with existing data sources such as OpenStreetMap, to create innovative solutions that will help build the evidence needed to meet national government’s objectives on active travel, including for 50% of short trips in urban areas to be made by walking, wheeling and cycling by 2030. The investment will demonstrate how new software engineering and data science techniques can support evidence-based planning and support Active Travel England’s mission.