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Transport Map Book

Transport Map BookThe Transport Map Books are available for each local authority district in England and present a series of maps related to commuting behaviour. The data are derived from multiple sources including: the 2011 Census, Department for Transport estimates and the results of a research project looking at carbon dioxide emissions linked to the school commute.

All the maps are available to download HERE; and the R code used to create them and the emissions model is on Github.

Travel to work flows

Travel to work flows
These data relate to Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) level estimates of travel to work flows by transport mode. The raw data are available from the ONS. For the maps, the flows have been limited to those both originating and terminating within each local authority district.

Accessibility to Services

Accessibility to Services
The Department of Transport provide a range of statistics at Lower Layer Super Output Area level about accessibility and connectivity to a series of key services. A subset of variables were mapped.

Emissions associated with the school commute

Emissions
These data were generated as part of an ESRC funded project investigating emissions associated with the school commute. The model provides an estimate of the carbon dioxide emitted at Lower Layer Super Output Area level. For full details of the methodology, see the open access paper:

Singleton, A. (2013) A GIS Approach to Modelling CO2 Emissions Associated with the Pupil-School Commute. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 28(2):256–273.

Car availability and travel to work mode choice

Car
These attributes were extracted from the 2011 census data provided by Nomis at Output Area level.

Distance and mode of travel to work

Distance
Workplace zones are a new geography for the 2011 census for the dissemination of daytime population statistics. A number of attributes were selected related to transport, and also were downloaded from Nomis.

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What is Science?

When you look at the discussions that are emerging around the term ‘Citizen Science‘, you can often find discussion about the ‘Citizen‘ part of the term. What about the ‘Science‘ part? This is something that once you start being involved in Citizen Science you are forced to contemplate. As Francois Grey like to note ‘Science is too important […]

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DataShine: 2011 OAC

The 2011 Area Classification for Output Areas, or 2011 OAC, is a geodemographic classification that was developed by Dr Chris Gale during his Ph.D at UCL Geography over the last few years, in close conjunction with the Office for National Statistics, who have endorsed it and adopted it as their official classification and who collected […]

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Researcher in Geography of Health/Medical Geography and GIS

TweetGeoHealth Laboratory, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Post based in Wellington   Researcher in Health Geography, GeoHealth Laboratory, based in Wellington This is a 2.5 year fixed term position. The successful applicant will have interests in the following areas; neighbourhoods and health, environmental justice and health, environment and health, impacts of urban environment on […]

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Try this 3D rollercoaster for the Oculus Rift headset. Could it help plan cities? – The Guardian


The Guardian

Try this 3D rollercoaster for the Oculus Rift headset. Could it help plan cities?
The Guardian
The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (Casa) at UCL in London, where Dawkins studies, had set out to show how a virtual rollercoaster could demonstrate to the Grand Designs Live exhibition’s 100,000 visitors a more tangible example of how

and more »

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3D Buildings

I’ve been experimenting with 3D buildings in my virtual globe project and it’s now progressed to the point where I can demonstrate it working with dynamically loaded content. The following YouTube clip shows the buildings for London, along with the Thames. I didn’t have the real heights, so buildings are extruded up by a random …
Read more

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BSPS day meeting on the ‘usual residence’ concept and alternative population bases, LSE, 24 October 2014

TweetThis forthcomingmeeting will be held at LSE on Friday 24th October 2014, 10.30am-5.00pm. The main question to be addressed is: ‘Is the concept of ‘usual residence’ reaching its sell-by date?’ Now that the Government has confirmed that a further Population Census will take place in 2021, it is an opportune time to consider how far […]

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Geographies of Co-Production: highlights of the RGS/IBG ’14 conference

The 3 days of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) or RGS/IBG  annual conference are always valuable, as they provide an opportunity to catch up with the current themes in (mostly human) Geography. While I spend most of my time in an engineering department, I also like to keep my ‘geographer identity’ up to date as this […]

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Herding Sheep

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28936251
Have you ever wondered how a farmer and a single sheep dog can herd sheep? A recent paper in Journal of the Royal Society Interface explains just how. Using GPS data from collars researchers have developed a computational model which  “reproduces key features of empirical data collected from sheep–dog interaction”. The model has two simple rules:

“The first rule: The sheepdog learns how to make the sheep come together in a flock. The second rule: Whenever the sheep are in a tightly knit group, the dog pushes them forwards.” (BBC)

The movie below (which accompanies the paper) shows some simulation runs with different numbers of agents. The shepherd (blue) approaches and rounds up the agents/sheep (black dots) and then proceed to herd the group toward the target.

Full Reference:

Strömbom. D. Mann, R. P., Wilson, A. M., Hailes, S., Morton, A. J., Sumpter, D. J. T., King, A. J. (2014) Solving the shepherding problem: Heuristics for herding autonomous, interacting agents. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 11: 20140719.

Thanks to @Badnetworker for drawing my attention to this.

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Herding Sheep

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28936251
Have you ever wondered how a farmer and a single sheep dog can herd sheep? A recent paper in Journal of the Royal Society Interface explains just how. Using GPS data from collars researchers have developed a computational model which  “reproduces key features of empirical data collected from sheep–dog interaction”. The model has two simple rules:

“The first rule: The sheepdog learns how to make the sheep come together in a flock. The second rule: Whenever the sheep are in a tightly knit group, the dog pushes them forwards.” (BBC)

The movie below (which accompanies the paper) shows some simulation runs with different numbers of agents. The shepherd (blue) approaches and rounds up the agents/sheep (black dots) and then proceed to herd the group toward the target.

Full Reference:

Strömbom. D. Mann, R. P., Wilson, A. M., Hailes, S., Morton, A. J., Sumpter, D. J. T., King, A. J. (2014) Solving the shepherding problem: Heuristics for herding autonomous, interacting agents. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 11: 20140719.

Thanks to @Badnetworker for drawing my attention to this.

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Opportunities at St Andrews for Population Researchers

TweetThree positions in Human Geography – ML1317 Details: The Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at St Andrews invites applications for three posts in Human Geography (from Lecturer to Professor). Exceptional candidates will be considered for Reader or Professorial positions. We welcome applications from candidates at all career stages who are, or have the potential […]

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OpenStreetMap studies (and why VGI not equal OSM)

As far as I can tell, Nelson et al. 2006 ‘Towards development of a high quality public domain global roads database‘ and Taylor & Caquard 2006 Cybercartography: Maps and Mapping in the Information Era are the first peer review papers that mention OpenStreetMap. Since then, OpenStreetMap received plenty of academic attention. More ‘conservative’ search engines such as ScienceDirect […]

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How making London greener could make Londoners happier – interactive map – The Guardian

How making London greener could make Londoners happier – interactive map
The Guardian
London – with all its tarmac, brick and glass – is actually 38.4% open space and ranks as the world’s third greenest major city. Now Daniel Raven-Ellison wants to go further … and make Greater London a national park. His campaign and online petition

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