While there may be claimed agreement that ‘active travel (e.g. walking and cycling) is desirable, much of the public discourse is heated, polarised and lacking in evidence. This PhD topic would investigate the role that visualization can play in informing a more evidence-based discussion. It brings together several important themes in visualization: spatio-temporal trajectory visualization; visualization of risk and uncertainty; visual storytelling and rhetoric.

For examples of previous giCentre work in this area including PhD student research, see Beecham 2014, Beecham and Wood 2014a, Beecham and Wood 2014b, Beecham and Wood 2014c, Wood et al 2014.

Objectives (can focus on a subset of these)
- Review of existing work on trajectory geovisualization
- Review of visual communication of risk and uncertainty
- Review and development of models of data visualization rhetoric
- Design and implementation and evaluation of a visual analytic system for supporting discourse in active travel.

Skills/interests
- Geovisualization, especially trajectory visualization.
- Statistical methods for uncertainty.
- Visual storytelling
- Visualization / statistical graphics programming (e.g. R, Python, D3, Processing)
- Active travel including transport policy and active travel advocacy

Contact
This topic was suggested by Professor Jo Wood. Please direct further enquiries to the giCentre.