Urban Big Data Centre

19/02/2025

Glasgow’s new hi-res traffic dataset sheds light on city traffic patterns

UBDC researchers have cleaned and processed raw traffic flow data from Glasgow City Council's open API portal to create an analysis-ready dataset which offers new insights into how traffic moves through the city’s streets.

The dataset stands out due to its high spatio-temporal granularity - capturing traffic flows every hour across a network of 470 sensors embedded in road infrastructure. It provides a detailed view of daily and seasonal traffic patterns, helping researchers and policymakers understand congestion, infrastructure needs, and even the long-term impact of events like the COVID-19 pandemic on urban mobility.

Full Story: https://www.ubdc.ac.uk/news/glasgows-new-hi-res-traffic-dataset-sheds-light-on-city-traffic-patterns

14/02/2025

A recent study, published in Nature, found that human-made materials - buildings, roads, and infrastructure - now outweigh all natural materials on Earth.

In a UBDC webinar on Thursday 27 February, Professor Zhenfeng Shao explores how we can better track the materials used in cities, to measure their environmental impact, and find innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions. A key focus is understanding how urban material stock relates to well-being and sustainability.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/high-resolution-mapping-of-material-stocks-in-the-built-environment-tickets-1248063243759?aff=oddtdtcreator

Join us for this hybrid UBDC webinar by Professor Zhenfeng Shao on monitoring urban material stock.

29/01/2025

European Space Agency funding UBDC and SatVu to develop Heat Loss Index. �

The European Space Agency (ESA) is funding a feasibility study – led by SatVu, a global leader in climate technology, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow - to enhance the analysis of building energy efficiency.

The €244,853 study will drive the development of the Heat Loss Index (HLI), a pioneering metric designed to identify buildings with high thermal energy wastage, enabling policymakers and urban planners to focus retrofitting efforts where they will have the greatest impact.

“By utilising high-resolution thermal images from SatVU and associated multi-source geospatial datasets, the newly developed Heat Loss Index is a major breakthrough in identifying heat loss at a large scale globally for our cities,” said Prof. Qunshan Zhao, Professor in Urban Analytics based in Urban Big Data Centre at the University of Glasgow.

“We will validate the Heat Loss Index using in-home temperature sensors as well as smart metre reading to ensure accuracy, and hope to use this product to accelerate the net zero carbon transition agenda in major global cities, especially in the lagging behind building sectors.”

Full details: https://ow.ly/4pKq50UPfPQ

13/01/2025

New year, new studies? UBDC's MSc programmes in both urban and transport analytics are designed to equip the next generation of researchers with high-level, sought-after skills and practical experience. Full details and introductory videos here: https://ow.ly/53qf50UF9W4

17/12/2024

Interested in using the comprehensive Adzuna job advertisements dataset to analyse UK labour market trends?

UBDC has posted a new Adzuna dataset workshop bringing together licensed users of the dataset and focusing, in particular, on analysis of job skills and location.

There are expert presentations by James Neave, Head of Data Science at Adzuna, and Cath Sleeman, Head of Data Discovery at Nesta and the opportunity to learn how other researchers are leveraging Adzuna data in their own work.

The video also introduces to the new 'Adzuna Users Community of Practice' Slack forum to help users:

* Understand Usage - Gain insight into how peers are leveraging Adzuna data.
* Communicate with UBDC - Relay data-specific requests to UBDC.
* Share Best Practices - Exchange knowledge and methodologies to elevate the quality and efficiency of research.
* Collaborative Opportunities - Explore potential joint research projects, promoting cooperation and synergy.

Watch the Adzuna video here: https://ow.ly/KHVb50UssRN

11/12/2024

UBDC Research Associate Mingyu Zhu, and colleagues from Northumbria University recently gave evidence to the UK Built Environment Parliamentary Committee on the subject of Grey Belt land. You can access their contribution here: https://ow.ly/vrmp50Up4L9

29/11/2024

Understanding who uses public transportation - and why - is essential for building inclusive transit systems. Traditionally, travel surveys have been at the core of this effort, but they often fall short, being costly, complex, and limited in capturing real travel behaviour. The rise of digital mobility platforms offers an opportunity to redefine the humble travel survey.

UBDC welcomes Jerome Mayaud - Director of Research & Consulting at tech company, Spare - to present a unique dataset that pairs detailed travel survey data with high-resolution trip data collected through microtransit and paratransit apps.

The talk – at 7 Lilybank Gardens, 11am on Thursday 5 December - will explore:

• How demand-response transportation (DRT) impacts travel behaviour, especially in generating new trips among marginalised groups
• Why collecting granular, intersectional travel data is crucial for filling the ‘diversity data gap’
• The impact DRT can have on loneliness and social isolation, and the potentially huge healthcare savings that arise.

26/11/2024

The IDEAMAPS Network has launched the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem platform at the World Urban Forum in Cairo, Egypt.

The platform has already attracted over 600 site visitors from a variety of countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt.

The digital mapping tool uses citizen science and participatory urban analytics to support improvements in deprived areas in Low- and Middle-Income countries.

The platform and a full report on the IDEAMAPS Network’s various events at the World Urban Forum can be accessed here: https://ow.ly/2YCM50UfQcr

21/11/2024

With international researchers, a worldwide alumni, and extensive use of our data collections and respected data services, UBDC has global reach and influence. Learn more about our impact: https://ow.ly/4mB050SOYo9

18/11/2024

The Urban Big Data Centre at the University of Glasgow is delighted to welcome Dr Binbin Lu from Wuhan University for a webinar on: 'Geographically Weighted Models: Diversified Application and Development Actions' at 3pm on Thursday 21 November in-person and online.

Dr Lu says: "With the recent rise in studies focused on characterising spatial non-stationarity in processes that vary across space, Geographically Weighted (GW) models have emerged as the de facto statistical toolkit for addressing such challenges. This has attracted a diverse range of users and developers from across various scientific disciplines.

"In this talk, I will introduce several newly developed GW models and demonstrate their applications through a series of case studies from different fields. To support the widespread adoption of GW models in research, I will also present the R package ‘GWmodel’ alongside a newly developed standalone software, ‘GWmodelS,’ which is built upon the GWmodel framework. The standalone software offers several key advantages, including a user-friendly graphical interface, enhanced operational efficiency, and improved accessibility. These features are designed to encourage usage across a broad spectrum of users, regardless of their technical expertise."

Dr Binbin Lu holds a PhD in Geocomputation from the National Center for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland. He is currently visiting the UK agricultural research institute, Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, England.

Register to attend here: https://ow.ly/6xtQ50U4fbg

05/11/2024

The IDEAMAPS Network is excited to announce the public launch of the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem platform (beta version) - a new digital mapping tool aimed at using citizen science and participatory urban analytics to support improvements in deprived areas in Low- and Middle-Income countries.

With the mission to foster positive exchanges of data between urban scientists, communities and policy makers, helping to overcome barriers in city planning, neighbourhood improvement and 'slum' upgrading, the platform – unveiled at the in Cairo on 5 November - enables citizens to directly improve the mapping of their own communities.

Full details: https://ow.ly/AXm550U04VP

01/11/2024

A team of researchers from UBDC have won a top award at the ACM SIGSPATIAL international conference in Atlanta, USA.

The ACM GISCup 2024 competition asked entrants to examine the 'Optimal Minimum Deployment of Electric Vehicle Charging Station Networks' to ensure equitable and efficient access for all users.

The UBDC team - Zixin Feng, Xinyan Xian, Yahya Gamal, supervised by Qunshan Zhao and Alison Heppenstall - developed a three-phase public charger deployment strategy to maximise coverage of local travel demand and EV ownership in Georgia, USA while minimising deployment in areas with high electricity outage potential.

Further details: https://ow.ly/o3wP50TY7vW

With a growing selection of both licenced data and freely available open data, access the transformative power of smart data through our extensive Data Catalogue. ‍

01/11/2024

The meeting at the University of Glasgow features a keynote talk from Prof Claire Miller on the project, the GALLANT DataHub, and the innovative AI and machine learning researchers are using to help inform a sustainable transition towards climate resilience.

GALLANT (Glasgow as a Living Lab Accelerating Novel Transformation) is a £10.5m research programme led by the University of Glasgow, in partnership with Glasgow City Council. Funded by UKRI NERC as part of their Changing the Environment investment, University researchers are helping the city move towards climate resilience whilst tackling health, social and economic inequalities.

Register to watch this talk online: https://ow.ly/iqiT50TclgR

24/10/2024

UBDC and Innovate UK-funded business, xRI are co-hosting a workshop on ‘Data-driven Decarbonisation in Scotland' at 9.30am in the Clarice Pears Building, University of Glasgow on Tuesday 5 November.

As the Scottish Government and others have made clear, there is no pathway to Net Zero without the near-complete decarbonisation of heat in housing. Data-driven innovations have an important role to play supporting: more efficient diagnosis of stock conditions; more rapid planning of retrofit measures; and more effective evaluation of subsequent performance.

This half-day event brings together stakeholders in the Glasgow city-region involved both in using sensor technologies to produce data-driven insights and in the development of retrofit strategies and programmes.

The aim is to share current work-in-progress and discuss opportunities for new collaborations to support the achievement of decarbonisation goals.

Full details and register: https://ow.ly/ecuw50TSxmT

22/10/2024

Join us online for next month's Turing Institute Urban Analytics meeting at the University of Glasgow featuring a keynote talk on 'AI for Collective Intelligence' from Professor Seth Bullock, from the University of Bristol.

Advances in artificial intelligence have great potential to help address societal challenges by leveraging AI into collective intelligence at national-scale. Prof Bullock presents a research strategy for mobilising inter-disciplinary research in this way and highlights some of the key issues that must be faced.

Register here: https://ow.ly/iqiT50TclgR