ESRC ADR UK No.10 Data Science Fellowship 2021
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Institute for Transport Studies
Abstract
Collaborating with 10 Downing Street's data science team (10DS) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the fellow will utilise linked administrative data created by government and public bodies across the UK to enable vital research to support better informed policy decisions and more effective public services. Analytical projects will be co-designed during a three-month inception phase, followed by a 12-month placement with 10DS and ONS where fellows will produce analysis to inform policy in priority policy areas, using a range of administrative, survey and newly created linked datasets in the access-restricted ONS Secure Research Service funded by ADR UK. Alongside undertaking specified research projects throughout the year, fellows will engage with stakeholders to champion data science across central government and support wider knowledge exchange with researchers on effective policy collaboration and data analysis and will spend a further period of up to three months to enable approved knowledge exchange, impact and publication activity.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Robin Lovelace (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Beecham R
(2023)
Connected bikeability in London: Which localities are better connected by bike and does this matter?
in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Beecham R
(2022)
A Framework for Inserting Visually Supported Inferences into Geographical Analysis Workflow: Application to Road Safety Research
in Geographical Analysis
Botta F
(2024)
Packaging code and data for reproducible research: A case study of journey time statistics
in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Lovelace R
(2022)
EXPLORING JITTERING AND ROUTING OPTIONS FOR CONVERTING ORIGIN-DESTINATION DATA INTO ROUTE NETWORKS: TOWARDS ACCURATE ESTIMATES OF MOVEMENT AT THE STREET LEVEL
in The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
Lovelace R
(2022)
ClockBoard: A zoning system for urban analysis
in Journal of Spatial Information Science
Lovelace R
(2022)
Jittering: A Computationally Efficient Method for Generating Realistic Route Networks from Origin-Destination Data
in Findings
| Description | As part of this 10DS Fellowship, I found new ways to apply data science techniques to policy relevant questions. Specifically, I developed the new 'jittering' method for processing and adding value to origin-destination data. In collaboration with researchers at the Alan Turing Institute I am now using the approach to map walking, wheeling, and cycling to school. The results will inform millions of pounds worth of investment in active travel schemes. More broadly, the project led to a new data science team being set-up in government, after I became the Director of Data and Analysis in Active Travel England on secondment from the data science team in No. 10 (10DS). I also discovered how to set-up data science capacity inside government after applying for the Head of Data Science role in Active Travel England which I am doing on a part time basis since January 2023 alongside my University of Leeds role. This has led to new funded projects in Portugal, Scotland and Northern Ireland. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes create a strong basis for further work using data science to inform policy. Specifically the outcomes allow people to add value to origin-destination data to inform investment in sustainable transport infrastructure. It has led to a £250k project funded by Transport for Scotland to develop a Network Planning Tool, which will transform the process of active travel network planning in Scotland, benefitting hundreds of thousands of people. |
| Sectors | Energy Environment Government Democracy and Justice Transport |
| URL | https://findingspress.org/article/33873-jittering-a-computationally-efficient-method-for-generating-realistic-route-networks-from-origin-destination-data |
| Description | The award has had a substantial impact on how data science is used in government. The project led to a new data science team being set-up in government, and the 10DS Fellowship was the basis of my work creating and recruiting for the Data and Digital team in Active Travel England, now an established part of the data science ecosystem in government, influencing how part of the Department for Transport family uses data. Through the SchoolRoutes and jtstats projects, the project provided new evidence on mobility and transport inequalities that are being used in practice. More widely, the project changed the narrative on how open source software is used in government and encouraged government departments to publish more code and data in the open. It led to deep collaboration and a new job and a new data science team in government was set-up as a result of this project. It led, for example, to a new web tool on the gov.uk website: https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Education,Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport |
| Description | During his time as Director of Data and Analysis in Active Travel England, Robin wrote Active Travel England's first ministerial submission to Rishi Sunak's government, which was accepted and led to a new grant funding agreement between the Active Travel England and the Alan Turing Institute. |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | Development and delivery of the SchoolRoutes project for Active Travel England, the underlying code of which is now published as an R package on Active Travel England's GitHub repository: https://github.com/acteng/netgen Development of the Active Travel Infrastructure Platform (ATIP), which became the Plan Your Active Travel Schemes app and which is now deployed on the Active Travel England website at https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| URL | https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| Description | Network Planning Tool for Scotland |
| Amount | £467,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | RG.TRAN.128414.003 |
| Organisation | Transport Scotland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2023 |
| End | 05/2025 |
| Title | PYATS |
| Description | See https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | See https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| URL | https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| Description | Working in Active Travel England |
| Organisation | Government of the UK |
| Department | Active Travel England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | During the fellowship period, Robin Lovelace was invited to become the Director of Data and Analysis in the new government agency, Active Travel England. He accepted the role and was the first person to hold this position, from September 2022 until January 2023, when he was recruited to work in the Civil Service as Head of Data and Digital in Active Travel England. During his time as Director of Data and Analysis in Active Travel England, Robin wrote Active Travel England's first ministerial submission to Rishi Sunak's government, which was accepted and led to a new grant funding agreement between the Active Travel England and the Alan Turing Institute. The fellowship led to Robin being recruited to work in the Civil Service as Head of Data and Digital in Active Travel England during a 2 year contract from January 2023 until January 2025. The role involved setting-up data and digital capability in Active Travel England. During that time Robin recruited a team of 5 people to work in the data and digital team, including: 2 data scientists (HEO and SEO level) 2 software engineers (G7) 1 data engineer (G7) Development and delivery of the SchoolRoutes project for Active Travel England, the underlying code of which is now published as an R package on Active Travel England's GitHub repository: https://github.com/acteng/netgen Development of the Active Travel Infrastructure Platform (ATIP), which became the Plan Your Active Travel Schemes app and which is now deployed on the Active Travel England website at https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| Collaborator Contribution | Active Travel England recruited me as their Director of Data and Digital and then hired me on a 2 year contract, resulting in me working in the Civil Service, who funded much of my work between January 2023 and January 2025. |
| Impact | New web application https://plan.activetravelengland.gov.uk/ |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Title | spanishoddata: Get Spanish Origin-Destination Data |
| Description | Gain seamless access to origin-destination (OD) data from the Spanish Ministry of Transport, hosted at . This package simplifies the management of these large datasets by providing tools to download zone boundaries, handle associated origin-destination data, and process it efficiently with the 'duckdb' database interface. Local caching minimizes repeated downloads, streamlining workflows for researchers and analysts. Extensive documentation is available at , offering guides on creating static and dynamic mobility flow visualizations and transforming large datasets into analysis-ready formats. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Countries nationwide opening-up valuable origin-destination datasets. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.14516104 |
| Title | spanishoddata: Get Spanish Origin-Destination Data |
| Description | Gain seamless access to origin-destination (OD) data from the Spanish Ministry of Transport, hosted at . This package simplifies the management of these large datasets by providing tools to download zone boundaries, handle associated origin-destination data, and process it efficiently with the 'duckdb' database interface. Local caching minimizes repeated downloads, streamlining workflows for researchers and analysts. Extensive documentation is available at , offering guides on creating static and dynamic mobility flow visualizations and transforming large datasets into analysis-ready formats. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | UK government considering creating open origin-destination datasets derived from mobile telephone datasets |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.14516105 |
| Description | Keynote speech at the Mobile Tartu conference in Estonia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to deliver a keynote talk at the Mobile Tartu conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.robinlovelace.net/post/tartu2024/ |