Australia and UK partner to build better cities
Australia and the UK have brought together the very best minds in urban planning to offer a vision of healthier and sustainable cities for the future.
Experts will be ‘virtually’ modelling and testing the benefits of new ideas in transport planning, to help cities address challenges like obesity stemming from people’s sedimentary lifestyles, noise and air pollution, and the wider effects of injuries sustained in road accidents.
This is a major challenge for planners, given that the urban and transport planning sectors in both the UK and Australia have so far not properly integrated the evidence available on health and environmental implications into future planning.
‘Influence and inform urban transport and policy planning’
Jointly led by the RMIT University’s Healthy Liveable Cities Group in Melbourne and the world-renowned Cambridge University, this collaboration looks at key links between the built environment, transport and other health-related factors to develop computer models that will be able to influence and inform urban transport and policy planning in both countries. The UK Medical Research Council and Australian National Health and Medical Research Council have jointly awarded the project nearly half a million pounds.
Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Director for the Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform, and who leads the Healthy Liveable Cities Group, said: ”
The new project, led by the RMIT Healthy Liveable Cities Group and Cambridge University, will examine the links between the built environment, transport and other health-behaviour to develop computer models that can better inform urban and transport planning policy and practice in Australia and the UK.
Also taking part in the project are Imperial College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Monash University, The University of Queensland and University of Leicester.
