Data Science | Robin Lovelace

AUM2026: Applied Urban Modelling Symposium and Pre-conference Seminar

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0100

I’ll be presenting on Modelling multi-modal traffic interactions, casualties, and safety risk for people walking and cycling.

Abstract

This talk presents data-driven approaches for modelling multi-modal traffic interactions, casualties, and safety risk for people walking and cycling, with the aim of informing government guidance on critical safety issues for walking, wheeling, and cycling. The presentation will cover: data engineering pipelines designed to ingest large volumes of pedestrian and cycle count data; the integration of casualty and traffic data to characterise risk; and open-source tools and reproducible methods used to build models capable of informing evidence-based policy and design guidance. The work draws on and extends existing transport modelling frameworks and speaks to the broader challenge of making active travel the natural choice for short trips in UK cities and towns.

Transport Committee Academic Engagement Event

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 09:30:00 +0000

The Transport Committee is holding an academic engagement event to strengthen connections with the research community and discuss pertinent transport policy issues.

The event aims to:

Give members of the Committee an opportunity to hear about the latest academic research.
Grow the Committee’s understanding of and connections to the research community.
Strengthen researcher understanding of the work of the Committee and how to get involved.

I have been invited based on my research expertise in:

Research methods and data science
Local and regional transport planning
Travel behaviour and behaviour change
Decarbonisation

I plan to discuss my ongoing work with Active Travel England, particularly the update to evidence on “critical issues” for walking, wheeling, and cycling. This involves a move towards identifying and remediating dangerous infrastructure rather than just promoting best practice. I am also developing methods to estimate baseline traffic levels for all modes at the road segment level, a project that is currently focused on the West Midlands but has national scalability.

Data Science for Transport Planning: 2 day course

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0100

Note: tickets are now on sale! Get yours at store.leeds.ac.uk.

Based on demand, I’m running a 2-day course with colleagues teaching modern data science skills for transport planning, focussed on transport planning practitioners and transport planning researchers looking to develop their skills for real-world applications.

Any questions welcome, looking forward to seeing you at the course!

Future-Proof Transport Planning: Cities Workshop

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:00:00 +0100

Keynote Talk

This is the keynote talk for the Sustainable Transport and Planning for Cleaner and Healthier Cities Workshop.

Robin Lovelace is Professor of Transport Data Science at the Leeds Institute for Transport Studies and Head of Data Science at Active Travel England.

New ways of working for a new generation of transport modellers

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0100

I am looking forward to leading the closing plenary session at Modelling World 2025, which will be held from 17-18 June 2025 at the Manchester Conference Centre.

I’m chairing the final session of the conference, 15:45-17:00 on Wednesday 18th titled “New ways of working for a new generation of transport modellers”. In it we will hear from the following panelists about new tools and ways of working across generations:

Robin North, CEO and Lead Technologist, Immense Simulations
Raquel Sánchez, R&D Data Scientist, Nommon Solutions and Technologies
James Hulse, Analyst, Transport for the North
Francesca Bryden, Head of Data Engineering, Department for Transport
Martin Campbell, Associate Director - Digital, SYSTRA
Ian Williams, Independent Transport and Land Use Consultant

We will explore the evolving practices, tools, skills, and mindsets shaping the future of transport modelling. More information about the conference can be found on the official event website.

Inaugural Lecture: Data Science for Future-Proof Transport Planning

Thu, 08 May 2025 16:30:00 +0100