Dr Robin Lovelace begins exciting new role with Active Travel England
Dr Robin Lovelace, a data scientist and Lead Developer of the Propensity to Cycle Tool, has been appointed as Active Travel England’s Interim Director of Data and Analysis.
Dr Robin Lovelace, a data scientist and Lead Developer of the Propensity to Cycle Tool, has been appointed Active Travel England’s Interim Director of Data and Analysis.
Dr Lovelace, an Associate Professor of Transport Data Science at the Leeds Institute for Transport Studies, has begun the interim role as part of his No.10 Data Science Fellowship to support data science across central government, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and in collaboration with the Office for National Statistics.
Robin has led many high impact data science projects to enable more evidence-based, participatory and effective decision making. His work will ensure that investment in active travel maximises health and equality opportunities associated with the uptake of walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport.
He has published many academic papers and four books, as well as open source software to support reproducible data science for transport planning.
The actionable evidence we produce will have a transformative effect on how people get around for every day journeys.
Active Travel England chief executive Danny Williams said: "I'm delighted Robin is joining the team.
“We're now starting to put together a data and analysis team that will revolutionise local and national insight into active travel. Our focus will be on building tools, systems and datasets that make walking, wheeling and cycling an obvious choice for helping communities to unlock the government's growth agenda and help support its net zero strategy. We'll approach this with an open source and collaborative mindset."
Transforming every day journeys
Dr Lovelace said: “Data is key to unlocking the potential for successful active travel schemes in communities across England.
“Active Travel England has a unique opportunity to build a world leading team and bring together, add value to, and operationalise datasets on active travel from a wide range of sources. Alongside the political will, long-term funding and expertise provided by Active Travel England, the actionable evidence we produce will have a transformative effect on how people get around for every day journeys.
“I have strong links with academic, data science and open source software communities and I look forward to recruiting a skilled team. ATE’s digital capabilities will make data work harder for us so that national and local government can make highly evidence-based decisions creating safer, easier and greener local trips.”
Dr Lovelace has commenced his interim role with Active Travel England and will work two days per week.
