Future Cities

Sustainable and socially-just mobility in cities of the future will require planners to jointly consider social and technological challenges. 

This is the view of Professor Vonu Thakuriah, the new Halcrow Chair of Transportation at the University. Her research examines the transportation needs of a wide spectrum of travellers including low-wage workers, seniors, persons with disabilities and young adults.

Her new book “Transportation and Information: Trend in Technology and Policy” recently published by Springer, New York, emphasises these cross-cutting aspects of transport and the novel uses of Information and Communications Technology in addressing challenges to transport provision.

Her advice to governments and planners is that when you deliver effective transport systems and infrastructure, you positively influence many other vital elements of a city such as social mobility, health and sustainability. To get this right though, requires the integration of knowledge from a wide range of disciplines. 

“Over time, people have realised that with a  massive asset like a transportation system it is not just the engineering aspect; there are also the social and the economic aspects, and there is a need for an understanding of how people’s needs and behaviors affect the system. You also have to understand how the system connects to other systems like health or economic development. Over time the range of disciplines that become involved in transportation are very large.”

One of the main tools for researchers to better understand all these areas affecting transport is through the massive amounts of data generated by a city. Professor Thakuriah has been playing a leadership role in Big Data and Urban Informatics.

Cities are laden with vast amounts of real-time sensors that generate  large amounts of data about the movement of people – as pedestrians, in vehicles, on public transport. People themselves generate significant amounts of data about transportation though social media. Information related to areas such as crime, housing, aging, socioeconomics and health is also vital to transportation-focused research.

In her new role at Glasgow, Professor Thakuriah is bringing together partners from many disciplines and institutions to conduct research at this intersection of transportation, society and technology. They will focus on developing the tools to enable cities to manage smart, sustainable and socially just transport.

She currently serves on the Glasgow Future City Demonstrator Evaluation Strategy Board, a body to help steer Glasgow toward initiatives that combine advanced technologies with social elements to improve people’s lives. She is already working with them on a project around active travel – encouraging Glaswegians to make fewer journeys by car. Her research uses data on areas like crime to identify how they may affect or inhibit people choosing to travel by bike or on foot. 

Technology will continue to advance transportation systems in smarter ways, but it’s important that this development considers the needs of all the people who depend on it. This intersection of technology and people really defines the concept of Future Cities.

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Related pages

• Prof Vonu Thakuriah
• School of Social & Political Sciences

First published: 25 November 2013