Modelling Travel Behaviour in a Changing Climate Using Emerging Data Sources

This PhD studentship focuses on understanding how climate change impacts travel behavior and mobility patterns. The project will leverage emerging data sources including GPS traces, smartphone app data, public transport smart card data, satellite imagery, street imagery, weather data, and social media to model travel behavior responses to climate stressors. Traditional travel behavior models rely on survey data that may not capture real-time behavioral shifts or nuanced responses to climate variability. This research aims to develop improved state-of-the-art travel behavior models with a greater focus on climate change-induced stressors such as rising temperatures, extreme heat waves, floods, and storms. The methodology will likely involve econometric and/or machine learning and AI tools for data fusion and behavior modeling, potentially implementing models in agent-based simulation tools to test alternative policy scenarios. The candidate has flexibility to choose the specific climate stressor of interest (extreme heat, flood, storms, etc.) and appropriate methodology. The research is linked with the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship NEXUS (Next Generation Travel Behaviour Models) project and will be supervised by Professor Charisma Choudhury at the Institute for Transport Studies.