Domestic transport is the UK's highest emission sector, and congestion in cities is costly (e.g. London £5.1bn in 2021). Drastically reducing urban car dominance is imperative to reach the UK's 2050 net-zero target, but also an unparalleled opportunity to create more equitable, inclusive and accessible cities of the future across the country. Recent UK investments of approximately £15bn seek to radically transform urban mobility and modality: £2bn for half of urban journeys to be cycled/walked by 2030 (e.g., cycle lanes, mini-Holland schemes), £5.7bn City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (e.g., Manchester bus and cycle schemes), and £7bn to level up local bus services. To realise full investment potential, and develop holistic adoption pathways towards net-zero, inclusive mobility, multimodal transport must be effectively planned, managed and operated, with people and their differences as a core consideration. This is challenging for a complex system-of-systems. On the supply side, modes compete for limited road space on shared infrastructure, creating conflicts. On the demand side, modes complement each other in intermodal journeys, jointly influencing uptake. For example, cycle lanes promote cycling, but may impact road speeds and exacerbate congestion and pollution, highlighting the need to evaluate person-level mobility and system-level emissions. A recent survey reported two-thirds of disabled respondents finding cycling easier than walking, highlighting the need to consider the broad disability spectrum and the potential for cycle lanes to improve access for all. Therefore, holistically optimising cycle lane schemes, as with all multimodal schemes, requires integrated methodologies: fully capturing multimodal transport systems' distributed and interconnected processes, the complexities of modal competition and complementarity, and the heterogeneity of traffic and population. My research will overcome these research challenges and develop the first multiscale digital twin for the transport-people-emission nexus using a truly integrated approach to model and simulate multimodal urban transport, advancing and coalescing my adventurous research in multimodality, using traffic flow theory, agent-based modelling, and machine learning. This will enable the development of holistic adoption pathways towards net-zero, inclusive mobility through scenario testing and optimisation, with guidance and recommendations to support implementation. Leading a strong consortium of 3 cities and 12 partners, covering the entire multimodal transport value chain, I will collaboratively exploit the digital twin to realise UK strategic agendas: net-zero; Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI); and levelling-up. By holistically enhancing mobility for everyone, my Fellowship also will propel the Green Revolution for economic growth, leveraging the net-zero mission to unlock new business opportunities, and establish the UK as a global leader in digital technologies to tackle climate change. I will deliver a strong positive impact on making net-zero a net win for people, industry, the UK, and the planet, thereby enabling both me and the UK to become world leaders in multimodal urban transport, at the forefront of research and innovation.

Emergency services (Ambulance Service; Fire & Rescue Service) play a crucial role during flood response, as they participate in joint command-control structures and are central to rescue and relief efforts (Frost 2002). Emergency services are often legislated to meet defined response times. UK legislation requires that emergency responders comply with strict timeframes when reacting to incidents. Category 1 responders such as the Ambulance Service and the Fire & Rescue Service are required to reach 75% of 'Red 1' (high-priority, life-threatening incidents) in less than 8 and 10 minutes respectively from the time when the initial call was received. This includes blue-light incidents such as life-threatening and traumatic injury, cardiac arrest, road collisions, and individuals trapped by floodwaters. In 2015-16, only one England ambulance trust met the response time targets and 72.5% of the most serious (Red 1) calls were responded to within 8 minutes, against a legislative target of 75% (National Audit Office, 2017). Between 2007-2014, the highest percentage Scottish Ambulance Service achieved was 74.7% in 2013 (HEAT standard). Rising demand combined with inefficient call handling and dispatch systems are often cited as the reasons for missing the above targets. However, response times can also be affected by flood episodes which may limit the ability of emergency responders to navigate through a disrupted road network (as was the case during the widespread UK flooding in 2007). The impact of flooding on road networks is well known and is expected to get worse in a changing climate with more intense rainfall. For example, in Portland, USA under one climate change scenario, road closures due to flooding could increase time spent travelling by 10% (Chang et al. 2010). The impact of an increased number of flooding episodes, due to climate change, on road networks has also been modelled by for the Boston Metropolitan area, USA (Suarez et al., 2005). This study found that between 2000 and 2100 delays and trip-time losses could increase by 80% and 82% respectively. The Pitt Review (2008) suggested that some collaborative decision making during the 2007 event was hampered by insufficient preparation and a lack of information, and better planning and higher levels of protection for critical infrastructure are needed to avoid the loss of essential services such as water and power. More recently, the National Flood Resilience Review (HMG, 2016) exposes the extent to which a significant proportion of critical assets are still vulnerable to flooding in England and Wales. In particular, it highlights that the loss of infrastructure services can have significant impacts on people's health and wellbeing. This project will combine: (i) an established accessibility mapping approach; (ii) existing national flood datasets; and (iii) a locally tested, recent-expanded real-time flood nowcasting/forecasting system to generate accessibility mapping, vulnerability assessment and adaptation evaluation for various flood conditions and at both the national and city-region scale. The project will be delivered via three sequential Work Packages, including: (a) Mapping emergency service accessibility according to legislative timeframes; (b) Assessing the vulnerability of populations (care homes, hospices and schools); and (c) Evaluating adaptation strategies (e.g. positioning standby vehicles).

Children spend 30% of their time in school. Thermal comfort in classrooms has been extensively researched but we know little about outdoor exposures, like those taking place in school playgrounds where children may spend up to one third of their time at school. Outdoor play is important for children's health and wellbeing and outdoor learning experiences are effective in developing cognitive skills. Many of the playgrounds are in dense urban areas where the outdoor temperatures are exacerbated. Children are one of the population groups most disproportionately affected by the extreme climatic conditions and regularly identified as a vulnerable group with respect to heat-health and climate change. In the design and evaluations of children's spaces, typically, adult heat budget models are used scaled to children's proportions. These models may be resulting in large discrepancies in comfort as well as physiological strain for the children population, due to the inaccurate assumptions employed in the models and due to their lack of a children-based validation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to better understand children's thermal comfort in outdoor spaces, particularly schoolyards, to deliver spaces that are effective in promoting outdoor activity and keep children safe across the seasons, especially given the increasingly frequent hot periods. The project aims to develop models and guidelines that ensure outdoor spaces in schools provide comfort conditions which reflect children's thermal state, along with preferences and expectations and are resilient to climate change. The research objectives are the development of outdoor thermal comfort models for children and thresholds for thermal comfort, while accounting for different forms of adaptation and habituation specifically for children, to evaluate the potential impact of different climate change scenarios, concluding with the development of guidance for the design of the schools' open spaces. This will be achieved by the complementary expertise of four UK universities (Kent, Brunel, Loughborough and Portsmouth) supported by the Department for Education (DfE), Greater London Authority (GLA), London Climate Change Programme (LCCP), The Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineer (CIBSE)-Resilient Cities Special Interest Group, Arup, Atkins, and the Met Office. The project will carry out measurements and thermal comfort surveys in six primary schools selected from dense urban areas in different parts of the UK to account for different climatic zones and socio-economic backgrounds. This will allow the development of empirical comfort models based on extensive field studies. Detailed laboratory data on exposures of children in climatic chambers will further investigate a wide range of parameters, which cannot be captured through surveys. Simulations will be carried out based on data from the schools to study how physical parameters and microclimate of the playground impact on children's thermal comfort. Design studies will be performed (based on data collected from surveys, laboratory and simulations) to propose solutions. The resilience of the solutions will be investigated using climate change weather data. The models and guidelines of the project will be of benefit to a range of beneficiaries within and outside Higher Education including academics in the different disciplines, school communities, professionals in the related fields (e.g. engineers, architects, specialist consultants), professional association and standardisation bodies, planners and policy makers. Representatives from the different user groups will participate in the Stakeholders Advisory Board, along with the DfE, a key partner for the project.

On a daily basis huge amounts of geospatial data and information that record location is created across a wide range of environmental, engineered and social systems. Globally approximately 2 quintillion bytes of data is generated daily which is location based. The economic benefits of geospatial data and information have been widely recognised, with the global geospatial industry predicted to be worth $500bn by 2020. In the UK the potential benefits of 'opening' up geospatial data is estimated by the government to be worth an additional £11bn annually to the economy and led to the announcement of a £80m Geospatial Commission. However, if the full economic benefits of the geospatial data revolution are to be realised, a new generation of geospatial engineers, scientists and practitioners are required who have the knowledge, technical skills and innovation to transform our understanding of the ever increasingly complex world we inhabit, to deliver highly paid jobs and economic prosperity, coupled with benefits to society. To seize this opportunity, the Centre for Doctoral Training in Geospatial Systems will deliver technically skilled doctoral graduates equipped with an industry focus, to work across a diverse range of applications including infrastructure systems, smart cities, urban-infrastructure resilience, energy systems, spatial mobility, structural monitoring, spatial planning, public health and social inclusion. Doctoral graduates will be trained in five core integrated geospatial themes: Spatial data capture and interpretation: modern spatial data capture and monitoring approaches, including Earth observation satellite image data, UAVs and drone data, and spatial sensor networks; spatial data informs us on the current status and changes taking place in different environments (e.g., river catchments and cities). Statistical and mathematical methods: innovative mathematical approaches and statistical techniques, such as predictive analytics, required to analyse and interpret huge volumes of geospatial data; these allow us to recognise and quantify within large volumes of data important locations and relationships. Big Data spatial analytics: cutting edge computational skills required for geospatial data analysis and modelling, including databases, cloud computing, pattern recognition and machine learning; modern computing approaches are the only way that vast volumes of location data can be analysed. Spatial modelling and simulation: to design and implement geospatial simulation models for predictive purposes; predictive spatial models allow us to understand where and when investment, interventions and actions are required in the future. Visualisation and decision support: will train students in modern methods of spatial data visualisation such as virtual and augmented reality, and develop the skills on how to deliver and present the outputs of geospatial data analysis and modelling; skills required to ensure that objective decisions and choices are made using geospatial data and information. The advanced training received by students will be employed within interdisciplinary PhD research projects co-designed with 40 partners ranging from government agencies, international engineering consultants, infrastructure operators and utility companies, and geospatial technology companies; organisations that are ideally positioned to leverage of the Big Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that are predicted to be the key to "accelerating geospatial industry growth" into the future. Throughout their training and research, students will benefit from cohort-based activities focused on group-working and industry interaction around innovation and entrepreneurship to ensure that our outstanding researchers are able to deliver innovation for economic prosperity across the spectrum of the geospatial industry and applied user sectors.

Vibration absorbers are commonly used in infrastructure assets (e.g. wind turbines, buildings, bridges) and in the dynamic systems which operate on them (e.g. railway and road vehicles). To achieve more structurally resilient, low carbon and lifetime cost efficient infrastructure assets, a step change in the performance of vibration absorbers is urgently needed. There are numerous absorber design possibilities considering components from multiple domains (mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical). However, because there is no systematic approach available, only an extremely limited number of designs have been studied to date. This fellowship will establish an optimal multidomain vibration-absorber synthesis tool, which will fully unlock the significant potential of vibration absorber designs. The superiority of the proposed synthesis tool, and the subsequent design improvements, will be demonstrated using industrially driven and supported case studies in three infrastructure sectors. These include the alleviation of wind- and wave-induced loads to wind turbines (wind energy sector); the mitigation of environmental- and human-induced oscillations in buildings and bridges (civil structure sector); the enhancement of vehicle-track and pantograph-catenary interactions (rail sector). The developed absorber synthesis tool will be applicable to solving the dynamic performance challenges in a wide range of mechanical structures, for example, minimising road damage produced by heavy duty vehicles, vibration mitigation of hydraulic and pneumatic pipelines, and dynamic performance enhancement for robotics and autonomous vehicles. These present a significant opportunity for the PI, UK Academia and UK Industry to establish a world leading capability in this challenging field with unique expertise.