Pioneers, subcultures and cooperatives: The grassroots augmentation of urban places

About the book: There have been numerous possible scenarios depicted on the impact of the internet on urban spaces. Considering ubiquitous/pervasive computing, mobile, wireless connectivity and the acceptance of the Internet as a non extraordinary part of our everyday lives mean that physical urban space is augmented, and digital in itself. This poses new problems as well as opportunities to those who have to deal with it. This book explores the intersection and articulation of physical and digital environments and the ways they can extend and reshape a spirit of place. It considers this from three main perspectives: the implications for the public sphere and urban public or semi-public spaces; the implications for community regeneration and empowerment; and the dilemmas and challenges which the augmentation of space implies for urbanists. Grounded with international real -life case studies, this is an up-to-date, interdisciplinary and holistic overview of the relationships between cities, communities and high technologies

Research and innovation in smart mobility and services in Europe: An assessment based on the Transport Research and Innovation Monitoring and Information System (TRIMIS)

For smart mobility to be cost-efficient and ready for future needs, adequate research and innovation (R&I) in this field is necessary. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of R&I in smart mobility and services in Europe. The assessment follows the methodology developed by the European Commission’s Transport Research and Innovation Monitoring and Information System (TRIMIS). The report critically assesses research by thematic area and technologies, highlighting recent developments and future needs.JRC.C.4-Sustainable Transpor

Children's Health: Evaluating the Impact of Digital Technology. Final Report for Sunderland City Council.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Children’s Health project sponsored by the City of Sunderland Digital Challenge project examined the impact of providing health-focused digital technologies to children aged 11-15 years, in terms of their usage and requirements of such technologies, and their subsequent behavioural changes. The empirical study ran with three groups of six children over a period of seven weeks for each group. A console-based exercise game and an exercise-focused social website were used in the study and the focus was on opportunistic (unstructured/unplanned) exercise. The emergent findings are: • Data collected about physical activity must be more extensive than simple step counts. • Data collection technologies for activities must be ubiquitous but invisible. • Social interaction via technology is expected; positive messages reinforcing attainments of goals are valued; negative feedback is seen as demotivating. • participants were very open to sharing information (privacy was not a concern). • Authority figures have a significant impact on restricting adolescents’ use of technologies. This document reports the how the study was conducted, analyses the findings and draws conclusions from these regarding how to use digital technologies to improve and/or maintain the physical activity levels of children throughout their adolescence and on into adulthood. The appendices provide the detailed (anonymised) data collected during the study and the background literature review

Assessing the Future Streetscape of Rimini Harbor Docks with Virtual Reality

The human factor plays an important role in the successful design of infrastructure to support sustainable mobility. By engaging users early in the design process, information can be obtained before physical environments are built, making designed spaces more attractive and safer for users. This study presents the collected data of a virtual reality (VR) application in which user perception has been evaluated within an urban redevelopment context. The area under consideration is the Canal of the Port of Rimini (Italy), a degraded area not connected to the city center. The redevelopment of degraded urban areas is the first step towards achieving the sustainability aims set out in the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to this work, evaluation methods were developed in the decision-making process, considering different social, economic, and environmental aspects in order to obtain a priority scale of interventions for urban regeneration. Architectural solutions were proposed to represent targeted and specific interventions that are designed precisely for the context to which they are dedicated in order to make the Canal Port area a continuum with its urban context and to improve its perception by tourists and inhabitants. To assess these proposed infrastructure modifications, two models of VR were created, one relevant to the current condition and one representing the future condition after redevelopment of the area. Virtual visits to the Canal of the Port of Rimini were created under two scenarios, namely, the current situation and the future situation after redevelopment of the infrastructure. Then, human participants were involved through two different questionnaires. The first allowed participants validate the VR model created by comparing it with the real context, while the second served to evaluate the perceptions of users by comparing the two VR models of the canal before and after the intervention. The results of this empirical research highlight the benefits of engaging users early in the design process and improving the user experience before implementing renovation of the infrastructure

MethOds and tools for comprehensive impact Assessment of the CCAM solutions for passengers and goods. D1.1: CCAM solutions review and gaps

Review of the state-of-the-art on Cooperative, Connected and Automated mobility use cases, scenarios, business models, Key Performance Indicators, impact evaluation methods, technologies, and user needs (for organisations & citizens)

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Improving obesogenic environmental assessments with advanced geospatial methods

This thesis explores the intricate connections between the envir- onment and obesity. It develops and applies advanced geospatial methods to enhance the assessment of obesogenic environments and obesity risks. Its primary objective is to evaluate obesogenic environments and explore potential associations between environ- mental factors and obesity, crucial for effective obesity prevention. The thesis is structured around four key objectives. The first sub-objective involves an investigation into the current literature on the measurement of the built environment. Street View Imagery (SVI) and advanced urban visual intelligence technologies have transformed Built Environment Auditing (BEA) substantially, enabling large-scale auditing at a detailed geographical level. A me- ticulous review of 96 articles published before September 15, 2023, reveals key areas for improvement in SVI-based BEA. Recommend- ations include standardized datasets for more accurate audits, the integration of multi-source SVI for comprehensive assessments, and the design of auditing tools tailored to developing countries. Ad- dressing these areas enhances the potential of SVI in environmental auditing, as they contribute to a better understanding of the built environment’s health impact and facilitate informed decision-making in urban planning and public health initiatives. The second sub-objective focuses on analyzing exposure to in- creasing PM2.5 pollution, associated with rising morbidity and mor- tality. An ensemble machine learning model, integrating multi-source geospatial data, is presented to map hourly street-level PM2.5 concen- trations in the city of Nanjing, China, at a 100 m spatial resolution. The study concludes that mapping these concentrations reveals spati- otemporal trends, supporting the establishment of exposome studies. The third sub-objective addresses the development of a framework to evaluate Physical Activity (PA) opportunities (bikeability) in urban environments, aiming to enhance sustainable urban transportation planning. A framework is proposed that comprises safety, comfort, accessibility, and vitality sub-indices. It uses open-source data, ad- vanced deep neural networks, and GIS spatial analysis, to eliminate subjective evaluations and enhance efficiency. Experimental results in the city of Xiamen, China, demonstrate the framework’s effectiveness in identifying areas for improvement and enhancing cycling mobility. The fourth sub-objective investigates the associations between PA opportunities, specifically walkability, and obesity. Using a cross- sectional cohort from Nanjing, China. A Logistic regression model with a double robust estimator estimates the effects of walkability on obesity risks. A newly developed walkability index shows a sig- nificant negative association with obesity, particularly when using a data-based-buffer derived from web-mapping navigation that better represents individual activity spaces. These findings provide evidence for developing explicit strategies for obesity prevention. In summary, this thesis contributes to addressing the knowledge gap in health geography between obesogenic environments and obesity risks, employing advanced geospatial methods. The integration of multisource geospatial data, machine learning methods like deep learning in a GIS environment, and spatial statistics presents a major step forward