ICUH 2024: A Healthier Horizon: Activating Urban Health Strategies for a Climate

The built environment, including safe infrastructure for cycling and walking, land-use diversity, and greenspace, significantly influences travel behaviours. However, the downstream impacts of travel behaviour on health are often overlooked in transport and urban planning, contributing to inequitable distribution of health-supportive built environment features, and to disproportionate funding towards infrastructure for private motor vehicles.


Traditional transport demand models focus on congestion and car-based travel times, but overlook the health effects of transport and planning. Such models are inadequate for predicting individual responses to complex interventions promoting active transport for various reasons, including: coarse spatial resolution; limited representation of walking, cycling and public transport usage, which are often aggregated to a single active travel mode; and the exclusion of built environment features relevant for active travel.


We developed an agent-based transport model that captures the complex dynamics of human behaviour in spatial and temporal dimensions. Our model integrates the influence of the built environment on travel behaviours and health related exposures and outcomes, including their unequal distribution across the population. Applying our model to case studies in Greater Manchester (UK) and Greater Melbourne (Australia), we evaluated interventions aimed at improving accessibility to daily destinations (e.g. shops, education, recreation) and enhancing cycling infrastructure. We modelled the effects on destination choice, mode choice, and route choice.


To overcome the challenge of knowledge translation of our complex model for end-users, we are collaborating with key stakeholders to develop user-friendly online tools for visualising and sharing resources. These tools will offer policymakers, advocates, practitioners, and researchers evidence-based insights into built environment changes that promote active transport, reduce spatial and health disparities, and guide investments in impactful interventions thus contributing to climate resilience.


Our workshop will showcase our agent-based modelling methods, model outputs, and the functionality of the online visualisation tool. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore the tool's features and learn how to interpret and use complex modelling outputs for practical applications in policy and advocacy. As our methods, tools and data are open source wherever possible, this workshop will give those who are interested the opportunity to apply our methods.