The local governance of digital technology – Implications for the city-scale digital twin

The project set out to examine how governance structures, processes and socio-political systems affect the adoption of new (digital) technologies – e.g. City Digital Twins – that provide evidence for policy making and implementation in urban planning and the management of urban infrastructures. Situating City Digital Twins as next-generation urban models, we analysed the existing practice of using computerised models to support decision-making in the multi-actor governance context of the Cambridge city region in the United Kingdom. The study traced modelling practices and evidence informed decision-making processes across a variety of sectors: transport, energy, land-use planning and telecommunications. Outcomes include the mapping of governance stakeholders in the wider Cambridge area, and the analysis of network relationships, to develop recommendations for the design and implementation of a Cambridge City Digital Twin. The role of citizens in the production of evidence was also examined with a participatory research approach to analysing citizen engagement initiatives and the impact of digital tools on democracy, participation and transparency in the local context. The results of the Cambridge case study are contrasted with international practice and global experiences pertinent to City Digital Twins in British, European and international cities. This comparative perspective provides initial insights to understand generalisation possibilities from the Cambridge case study

Integrating national policies to deliver compact, connected cities: an overview of transport and housing

This report explores the ways in which urban policy sectors are integrated (or fragmented) in ten case study countries: China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis is based on the most recent and authoritative national-level policy documents

Networked urban governance: a socio-structural analysis of transport strategies in London and New York

This paper investigates urban governance empirically by applying social network analysis methods to data gathered through structured interviews in London and New York. We explore how decisions are made in complex institutional environments inhabited by various types of actors. Owing to the time-consuming data collection and treatment processes, the research zooms in on transport. The comparative approach enabled the detection of different structural features in the governance networks shaping transport strategies in both cities. The perceived relative power, influence, dependence and/or affinity between the actors involved is discussed based on network attributes. The evidence suggests that transport governance in London is more centralised (and, arguably, more technocratic and integrated), in the sense that a few prestigious entities are clearly more prominent. In New York the institutional environment is typified by many checks and balances (and, arguably, more democratic and fragmented), where central actors are less obvious

Ethics and Transport Policy: a working paper

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Definite Space – Fuzzy Responsibility, Prague, 13-16th July, 2015This is a multi-disciplinary project intended to bring together academics from disciplines such as moral and political philosophy, civil engineering, geography and transport and town planning combined with contributions from policy makers. The project has explored the hypothesis that, whilst transport decisions may have considerable distributional effects, ethical considerations are rarely explicitly considered in the policy making process. Unacknowledged ethical assumptions such as those implicit in decision support tools like cost benefit analysis have been examined in order to understand their impact on policy decisions. The paper considers three different ethical theories through the lens of transport policy making utilitarianism, the capabilities approach and the work of John Rawls. The paper concludes with a snapshot of one of the positions developed and the argument that if transport is treated as part of the welfare state then this opens policy making up to the consideration of a wider range of values than is the case under current practices.Published Versio