Human Activity Spaces in Cities

Wearable sensors measure the environmental conditions (air and noise pollution as well as heat) at the location where an individual is staying. In this way, firstly, they register that person’s personal exposure and health risk. Secondly, they act as explorers of the urban environment when we consider a large number of people moving around in a city. Thirdly, wearable sensors can provide feedback to the carrier, motivating changes of a person’s mobility behaviour.

People’s mobility is determined by urban services such as shops, health care, sports facilities, and so on. In this seminar, Professor Schlink will focus on these movements of people, many of whom we have GPS records of (GPS is part of wearable sensors). Previous computer simulations of human mobility show that the type of mobility has an impact on personal exposure. Several authors have utilized large amounts of smartphone positioning data to derive new models of human mobility.

This seminar discussion will address the aspect of individual human mobility, in particular the characteristics of activity spaces in cities, mobility models, as well as privacy aspects of mobility data and behavioural changes to adapt to environmental conditions. To this end, he  will to ask following questions:

- What are the personal and social determinants of an individual’s daily movement pattern and activity space?

- Is intersectionality (the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage) an issue for environmental exposure and environmental justice?

- How would you define characteristics of an individual’s movement trajectory and its individual-specific activity space?

Places are limited and so any academic colleagues or students interested in attending in person should register here. 

To attend online via Zoom, please register here.