I've tried many workflow automation tools and nothing beats the #rstats package {targets}. It's pure R, simple (while being feature-rich, great support for parallel execution and multi-lingual workflows, this is calling Python+DuckDB). It *trounces* the likes of make/dagster 4me. Check it out!

Calling all #RStats + #Transport researchers! stats19 v4.0.0 is here - a major update to the UK's road crash data package. Blog post: www.robinlovelace.net/post/stats19... Issues: github.com/ropensci/sta...

I'll be hosting Will Deakin from Network Rail for a Seminar at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, and online, next week Thursday 19th March. Well worth listening to, so check out the invite and spread the word, all welcome: itsleeds.github.io/tds/sem2/inv...

Good to see conversations emerging from the recent Podcast interview I did. What a way to get research out there and to get conversations going 🎙️ I definitely recommend long-form conversations to supplement papers, reports, great to see ideas are reaching new people and places online 🚀

Exciting new funded #PhD opportunity here at the University of Leeds' Institute for Transport Studies #ITS. The project will develop definitive new insights into the impacts of new speed limit policies, down to the road network with the potential to save dozens of lives. Check it out!

I recently appeared on the Mobility Club podcast to discuss open data, open source tools for transport planning, and why data-driven decision making matters for active travel. 🎧 Great to chat with Isabella & Santiago about bridging research & practice!

My work recently set-up GitHub enterprise 🎉 It's probably overkill for many research use-cases but handy for teaching. Many thanks to the University of Leeds!

Today I learned 1) that the tram system of Leeds of early 1900s was HUGE and 2) that the 1910 town map of Leeds captured things that are TINY, including individual trees and rail tracks 🤯 Defo doing more with this soon, watch this space...

This paper was more than 2 years in the making, involving 3 organisations (Leeds Uni, Network Rail, ESRI), 2 (totally different) GISRUK presentations, dozens of iterations, 1 Python package (install it with pip install parenx), and amazing #opensource collaborations 🎉 Celebrating its launch today 🚀

I've just added a few more links to #openaccess resources and a few more maps to the nascent openraildata resource page. Credit to my ITS Leeds colleague Alex Stead for the links, we have some ideas for research building on these datasets, watch this space!

Interested in historic railways in the UK and beyond? I've just written some code and uploaded some #openaccess datasets showing the extent of abandoned railways in the UK, could be a good basis for research projects. See here 4more: github.com/itsleeds/ope... ideas of research questions welcome!

Happy to see new newest member of the #geocompx family up on the geocompx.org website: Spatial Data Visualization with tmap is an awesome book that is still in progress 🏗️ Well worth a read to launch your reproducible map making journey 🚀

People have been asking about the materials for the Data Science for Transport Planning course in Leeds and I'm happy to share that we've made them #openaccess for anyone who wants to get started in this space: tdscience.github.io/dstp/ #itsleeds.

Stoked to announce the launch of our new short course, Introduction to Data Science 🚀 Designed to be delivered in 3-hour session but you can study at your own pace using online #opensource materials. Fully reproducible and deployed with GitHub actions: itsleeds.github.io/introds/ #datascience

Just adding #Python code for the course I'm teaching on Friday 🐍 I decided to use the newer 'polars' package instead. Such a cool package! We now show people how to solve a problem originally designed to teach Excel from the command line, in #rstats and #python, take your pick!

Is it possible to teach an Introduction to Data Science course in 3 hours? I will find out soon! You can too if you attend the course this Friday as part of the MSc at the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) in Leeds. You can also attend remotely, watch this space for #openaccess materials 🚀

Every transport system has to deal with changes in elevation leading to slopes, also known as gradients. Even in the Netherlands, which is often described as being 'flat as a pancake', there are slopes on roads. Reproducible code using our {slopes} #rstats package: github.com/ropensci/slo...

I just came across another new tool to support effective investment in active, efficient and effective transport systems: index.velobserver.ch/zuerich Credit to Roger Fischer, many thanks for sharing, I look forward to learning more about this #openaccess tool!

Most transport models oversimplify modes, even complicated models with hundreds of unit parameters. It's good to see a transport model in the woodsild with a detailed and hierarchical classification system. More like this please!

Looking forward to presenting on modelling transport systems with simple and efficient tools at the Transport and Mobility colloquium in Zurich later today. For anyone interested, check out the slides and #opensource code to reproduce the results here: www.robinlovelace.net/presentation...

I'm very much looking forward to Prof Eva Heinen's inaugural talk in Zurich today and you can too, from 17:15 CET (16:15 in UK) at this link: event.swisscom.ch/v/eth-live-1... Plus I will be presenting at event there tomorrow, more soon!

The 10th Mobile Tartu Conference & PhD School will take place June 7-10, 2026, in Tartu, Estonia! Celebrating two decades of human mobility studies with a focus on large origin-destination datasets. Learn more and sign-up here: mobiletartu.ut.ee #MobileTartu #HumanMobility #Transport #DataScience

For anyone wondering how to make modern maps projected on a globe, here's some reproducible code you can give a spin right now: github.com/Robinlovelac... Context: someone asked how I made the map in the talk I delivered at the ITF-Eurostat conference last week, happy to share it with the world!

I presented today on Building Capacity for Data-Driven Urban Mobility at the ITF–Eurostat Conference on Promoting Data-Driven Decision-Making in Sofia, Bulgaria. Really interesting questions and good discussion after. Slides are here for anyone interested: www.robinlovelace.net/talk/buildin...

🎉 The latest version of {stats19} is here! This #rstats package for road collision data now includes: ✨ 2024 data downloads (finally) 👥 A new package author (Blaise Kelly) 📃 Docs reproducing DfT data Instantly analyse 9 million+ collision records 🚀 Details: docs.ropensci.org/stats19/news...

A typology of roads in Great Britain. Source: www.gov.uk/government/p...

Updates are underway in the {stats19} #rstats package, the quickest way to access large, high-quality collision datasets with geographical location and dozens of other variables at collision, vehicle, and casualty levels: new contributor (Blaise 🔥) + new data almost ready to launch 🚀

It's day 2 of the Data Science for Transport Planning course here at Leeds. We'll be covering spatio-temporal data analysis, multi-modal routing, route network analysis, and how to go from data science results to a web application. Watch this space for #OpenAccess materials!

If you want to understand origin-destination data, visualisation is key. The {flowmapblue} package provides functions for creating interactive maps showing bidirectional flows. Just-discovered bonus: you can add time filters to see the 'pulse' of a city: ropenspain.github.io/spanishoddat...

Very much enjoying the presentation by ITS colleague Yuanxuan Yang on origin-destionation data, including ways of collecting it and various uses. The most important data structure in transport planning? It's hard to beat but under-appreciated! Learn how to use OD data upcoming courses 🚀

It's the first day of the new Data Science for Transport Planning course and I'm stoked to be delivering it with such an amazing team, including my colleagues Juan Fonseca-Zamora and Yuanxuan Yang. Welcome everyone arriving at the Institute for Transport Studies in #Leeds for the course today 🚀

I've long been interested in ways to reduce barriers-to-entry for people wanting to get started with #DataScience for their work. Happy to share recent successes using 'devcontainers' and 'codespaces' on #GitHub. Interested? Try it here and let us know how you get on! codespaces.new/tdscience/ds...

In preparation for the Data Science for Transport Planning (DSTP) course I'm teaching this week, I've updated the geocompx docker images to make them smaller, faster, and more flexible. Happy with the results: a portable multilingual environment for reproducible (transport) #DataScience

The Geocomputation with Python #opensource book project just got an upgrade, with Python 3.12 now the default in the devcontainer. You can launch a full dev environment directly from your browser with GitHub Codespaces. Give it a try here: github.com/codespaces/n...

There are many integrated development environments for data science but which one to choose? For the upcoming EIT Mobility summer school in Lisbon next week I've put together a table of features comparing them. Interested to hear what people use for your #datascience needs #eitmobility.

Very happy with this: I'm delivering a workshop as part of the Road Safety on 5 Continents conference #RS5C. Can confirm: entire 'RRSRR' textbook is reproduced from itsleeds/tds 'devcontainer' environment I set-up for the course 🚀 If you want to get involved, watch this space for courses + content!

Does anyone have experience developing inside browser-based instances of VS Code or derivatives such as the Positron integrated development environment by #Posit? It seems to work well but some shortcuts that would work locally, like Ctrl+PgDn behave different locally. Impressed! #DataScience

Updated content for my Reproducible Road Safety Research workshop! 🚗💻 We've refreshed the #rstats materials from 2020 on GitHub and would love your feedback. Take a look and help us improve it for next week's workshop! #DataScience #OpenAccess github.com/itsleeds/tds...

2-day Data Science for Transport Planning course is approaching. Want to build your #DataScience skills and apply them for academic research (~50% discount for students) or professional development? This could be ideal for you! See details here: itsleeds.github.io/tds/dstp.html

New #rstats package for clustering and aggregating origin-destination data just dropped. For more on {flowcluster} and to get involved in the conversation, see Hussein's LinkedIn post here: www.linkedin.com/posts/hussei...

An intriguing point at the intersection of #geocomputation and #transportplanning: the intricacy of three-dimensional transport networks means that certain paths from point A to point B become MultiLinestrings when converted to two-dimensional formats: www.cyclestreets.net/journey/1229...

Animated map of Active Travel Fund investment across England over the last 5 years, using open data and reproducible code. See here for code and download the data, comments/suggestions welcome: github.com/itsleeds/ukt...

Just stumbled upon this insightful Figure 7.16 from "Manual for Streets" (page 89). It shows the correlation between forward visibility, carriageway width, and vehicle speeds (both average & 85th percentile). Source: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7e00...

It's well-known that the rightly popular/ubiquitous version control software Git is good for tracking changes in computer code. But did you know that it's also an outstanding tool for tracking changes in natural language/prose? Source: github.com/nptscot/netw...

Looking forward to the Speed Learning session tomorrow at Active City York, where me and Angus Calder from Sustrans will demo the Network Planning Tool for Scotland (NPT). Excited to show new StreetSpace data layer 🎉 For a taster, see here: www.npt.scot#/streetspace...

Delighted to announce: the NPT for Scotland was Highly Commended at the Scottish Transport Awards! 🎉 Funded by Transport Scotland and delivered in collaboration with Sustrans, A/B Street and CycleStreets. Congrats to the team! #TransportPlanning #ActiveTravel

Looking forward to chairing a session on New ways of working for a new generation of transport modellers at Modelling World 2025. There's a great line-up of speakers and lots to discuss www.robinlovelace.net/talk/new-way...

Looking forward to teaching the upcoming 2-day course Data Science for Transport Planning at the University of Leeds' Institute for Transport Studies. See more and follow the links to get your tickets here itsleeds.github.io/tds/dstp

Just signed-up to the #UTSG2025 conference in Dublin, 25th-27th June. Looking forward to presenting our work on transport data integration to calculate Level of Service on every road in Scotland. Thanks to colleagues, Transport Scotland + Sustrans. See you there! #NPT #geocompx

There's an upcoming in-person talk in ITS Leeds on modelling major change for transport decarbonisation. Specifically, what would happen if 50% of road space was reallocated for active travel? Book a ticket here to out! www.ticketsource.com/institute-fo...