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CDRC Research Fellow post available with our Liverpool team

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The CDRC Liverpool team have an exciting Research Fellow role available.  Based in the Geographic Data Science Lab the successful candidate will provide data science / analytics support to CDRC activities. Research projects will be focused on deliverables that are externally facing, and will likely be situated within the themes of health, housing, population or infrastructure (transportation / digital etc). Candidates should have a PhD or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Geographic Information Science, Quantitative Social Science or other related quantitative discipline and will be joining a large team of PhD and other researchers at the University of Liverpool as well as working with the CDRC team at UCL. The post is available in the first instance until 31 January 2020. Closing date for applications 6th December 2018.

For more information see here.

Dive into Data 2019 – UCL

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The CDRC at UCL are delighted to be supporting an exciting data challenge ‘Dive into Data’ in partnership with the UCL eResearch Domain and UCL Grand Challenges.  Open to UCL academics, researchers and masters students from all disciplines we are looking for novel and innovative ways to analyse and/or visualise our open or safeguarded consumer data to gain new insights into one (or more) of the UCL Grand Challenge priority themes.

Expressions of interest should be submitted by the 18th January 2019 with full case studies to be submitted by 8th May 2019.  Finalists will be invited to present their work at the e-Research Domain annual conference in June.

For further information https://www.ucl.ac.uk/research/domains/eresearch/diveintodata

How Healthy are our High Streets?

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With the closure of many major high street names through 2018 with the loss of over 40,000 jobs the importance of understanding how our high streets are performing has never been more important.  With the Chancellor announcing £1.5bn high street relief along with the digital services tax in this week’s budget, the daily reports of retailers closing and struggling and the launch of The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) report ‘Health on the High Street Running on Empty’ highlighting the UK’s healthiest and unhealthiest high streets research and data available from the CDRC is of particular value.

The CDRC has produced a series of indicators and maps that can help give a picture on how our high streets are doing starting by defining retail catchments and typologies; how many people are on our high streets at any time; looking at the impact of the internet and then examining the wider picture of how access to the facilities provided by our high streets can impact our own heath.

Retail Typologies

The RSPH report provides interesting insights into the evolution of British High streets and the impact they can have on health. Nevertheless, it covers only 70 of the largest high streets in the country and focuses on a small number of retail and service types around leisure, retail services and some convenience retail outlets.

Launched today our multidimensional typology of over 3000 retail centres groups all centres into a number of clusters based on a much wider range of characteristics. As such, it provides a more comprehensive platform for a cross-comparison of retail centres across various spatial scales. It uses metrics derived for both retail centres and catchment demographics which are captured by a number of domains including composition, function, form, diversity and economic health.

Such cross-comparison not only provides a better understanding of how the contemporary consumption spaces are evolving, but also offers substantial analytical leverage for investment.

For further information see Why some retail centres out perform others

For maps see https://maps.cdrc.ac.uk/#/geodemographics/retailtypology

For data see https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/historic-retail-centre-boundaries

Footfall Index

Working with the Local Data Company on the SmartStreetSensor project, CDRC researchers have access to data from around 900 footfall sensors located in retail centres around the UK.  From these data we can explore how busy our high streets are and how different events, such as the ‘Beast from the East’ and the summer heatwave impact footfall.  We have produced the CDRC-LDC footfall index looking at monthly footfall changes across the UK and the data are available at various levels of aggregation to researchers through the CDRC safeguarded service.

For CDRC-UCL footfall index https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/stories/united-kingdom-footfall-index

For CDRC Safeguarded footfall data and the CDRC Footfall Atlas see:

https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/local-data-company-smartstreetsensor-footfall-data-%E2%80%93-research-aggregated-data

https://www.cdrc.ac.uk/the-smartstreetsensor-footfall-atlas-explained-copy/

Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards

Focusing on purely the high street ignores the wider influences of our health in the communities and neighbourhoods outside of them. For example, the average individual is located 1.12km from their nearest pub, 1.21km to their nearest gambling outlet, 1.05km to their nearest GP. These are the equivalent of a few minutes drive time, or a 10 minute walk. These aggregate statistics also hide variations and inequalities in the types of environments people are exposed to. People in the most deprived neighbourhoods in Great Britain are twice as close to most types of unhealthy retail outlets, but also located nearer to the majority of health services.

The CDRC has produced a free resource called ‘Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards’ that maps out the accessibility to environmental features that influence our health.

For more information see ‘Why Great Britain’s rural areas may not be as healthy as we think’

For AHAH maps https://mapmaker.cdrc.ac.uk/#/access-healthy-assets-hazards

For AHAH data https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/access-healthy-assets-hazards-ahah

Internet User Classification 2018 and 2014

The CDRC’s Internet User Classification is a unique classification to determine how people living in Great Britain interact with the Internet. Offering 10 unique classes of Internet Use and Engagement a picture can be drawn as to how likely the population may be to shop online rather than in their local high street.  Influenced by demographic factors such as population age or ethnicity as well as locational factors such as mobile broadband speeds this classification gives a unique insight into how likely a particular high street may be impacted by online shopping.

For more information see The Great British Geography of Internet Use and Engagement

For IUC 2018 map  https://mapmaker.cdrc.ac.uk/#/internet-user-classification

For IUC 2018 data https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/internet-user-classification

For further details on any of the featured research please contact the CDRC at [email protected] 

2018 Masters Research Dissertation Programme Winners Announced

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The winners of the CDRC’s 2018 Masters Research Dissertation Programme were recently announced at the Data Analysts User Group (DUG) Conference.

The CDRC-led programme provides the opportunity for students to work directly with an industrial partner and commercial datasets. This year, 20 students participated in the programme with the support of a range of partners, including Sainsbury’s, Shop Direct, Boots and M&S. Short summaries of the projects have been provided by the students and can be found here.

A panel of industry judges awarded three prizes based on the calibre and impact of the research. This year’s panel comprised Matthew Pratt (Javelin), Thomas Murphy (The Crown Estate) and Helen Parker (Tesco). The judges commented that the standard of work was very high and noted that a wide range of new techniques for handling big data were well implemented across the programme.

Prize Winner

Lenka Hasova (University of Liverpool) and Boots

Investigation of prescription flows between General Practices and Boots pharmacies via spatial interaction modelling techniques

Lenka’s study applied a range of different model specifications to estimate and analyse the distribution of GP-Boots pharmacy prescription flows in Merseyside, North-West England. The judges commented that the analysis was thorough and logically presented. Crucially it also tackled an important study area and her methods could be used to assist and improve the provision of pharmacies.

A short summary of Lenka’s research can be found here.

Runners up

Sophie de Kok (UCL) and Sainsbury’s

Predicting customer quality based on early shopping behaviour in online grocery retail

This project considered the exploration and evaluation of models for estimating the longer-term value of customers based on transaction data. The judges described Sophie’s submission as an advanced piece of analysis that was coherently presented. The research was well executed and clear benefit to the sponsor

A short summary of Sophie’s research can be found here.

Thomas Statham (University of Liverpool) and A National Broadband Provider

Forecasting network faults with Bayesian spatiotemporal statistical models

Thomas looking into means of forecasting network faults that might occur across the broadband infrastructure. This considered both time-series data provided by the sponsor and local sociodemographic factors. The judges commented that the dissertation demonstrated a thorough understanding of statistics and forecasting which were evidently well applied to tackle a complex issue in a novel way.

A short summary of Thomas’ research can be found here.

Poster Winner

Kahina Ait Ouazzou (UCL) and Movement Strategies

Analysing Customer Behaviour for Shopping Centres in London Using GPS Data

A ballot at the DUG conference was held to award the poster prize. Kahina’s project developed a conceptual framework on how to use GPS data to capture customer behaviour for shopping centres. It considered anonymised GPS data for Greater London in 2017.  Through the identification of shopping centre visits and home locations from GPS data, it was possible to analyse customer behaviour at a high spatio-temporal granularity and define the retail catchment areas.

A short summary of Kahina’s research can be found here.

 

Photo Credit: Jan Wright Photography

Inclusive and healthy mobility – new webpage launched

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We have launched a new webpage for the ESRC-funded project ‘Inclusive and Healthy Mobility: Understanding Trends in Concessionary Travel in the West Midlands’. The project analysed 400,000 anonymised concessionary passengers to understand the sharp decline in bus boardings in the West Midlands Combined Authority between 2011 and 2016.

The webpage provides

  • findings and evidence on recent boarding trends;
  • an interactive dashboard of regional boarding trends;
  • data packs and interactive maps of mobility and accessibility indicators;
  • manuals to reproduce the linkage of smart card data following the UK ITSO format.

Key findings include

  • Bus boardings under the ENCTS scheme which entitles senior residents to free bus travel, have fallen by 21 per cent between 2011 and 2016;
  • Only parts of this trend can be attributed to recent eligibility restrictions to the scheme;
  • Our smartcard analysis identified six types of passengers with distinct residential patterns within the West Midlands Combined Authority;
  • A sharp withdrawal of regular bus users occurred in 2015-2016 and can be geographically linked to social disadvantage;
  • The decline in patronage coincides with structural changes in the transport system (extension of Midlands metro, introduction of e-hailing services) and uptake of online shopping among senior residents.

More information and detail findings can be found here.

CDRC co-hosts Data Analytics, Innovation and the Impact on Business and Society event at Senate House

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As part of UCL’s Impact Series the CDRC in partnership with UCL Innovation & Enterprise and the UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Partnership  organised a networking event at Senate House, University of London yesterday (10/10/18).

The event titled ‘Data analytics, innovation and the impact on business and society’ sought to bring together academics and businesses in order to discuss key trends in data analytics and means through which partnerships between the two sectors can be forged.

The afternoon event included an impressive line-up of 17 academics, doctoral students and key industry speakers. They included a keynote from CDRC’s Dr James Cheshire who discussed geospatial visualisation techniques and introduced the work of the CDRC. Drawing on the theme of better collaborations between academia and the private sector, three speakers from industry (Virgin Media, Local Data Company, Movement Strategies) and one from academia (Kim Cassidy, Edge Hill University) presented their views on the CDRC Masters Research Dissertation Programme, having all been external partners at some stage. All four speakers described previous research projects and commended the impact that the programme has had on their own work. Following this four PhD students from the CDRC and the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis described their research with commercial sector data.

The day also included a fascinating panel discussion chaired by UCL visiting professor Matthew Hopkinson. The panelists included Peter Marks, CEO, Deltic Group; Sophie Birshan, Head of Retail Analytics & Insight, John Lewis & Partners; Graham Seaton, Property Asset Manager, Ann Summers and Alex Loizou, Co-Founder, Trouva.com. The debate covered issues and opportunities that arise from the changing nature of Big Data and how retail has had to adapt. Finally, the event was concluded by CDRC Director Paul Longley.

The event was attended by 55 contacts from industry and a large number of academics. It is hoped that the event will help encourage more external collaborations either in the form of short-term masters dissertations, or longer-term research projects and data licence agreements.

*Matthew Hopkinson, Visiting Lecturer at University College London and facilitator of the event, has written a very interesting post event blog on ‘Why Academia and Business can learn more from each other‘.

 

CDRC and AGI host the first Geo+Data London event

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The Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) in partnership with the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) hosted the first Geo+Data London event at University College London (UCL) on 2 October 2018.

The seminar series is designed to bring together academia and industry in order to share and learn from experiences and best practices in the use of Big Data. The first event featured Alistair McMahon, Analytics Director at Telefónica UK/O2, and Balamurgan Soundararaj, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography at UCL.

Alistair McMahon’s talk, entitled ‘Smart Cities and Smart Transportation’, focused on the important connectivity work that O2 engage in, concluding that a data led approach to planning was critical to the success of smart cities.

Our academic speaker, Bala Soundararaj, gave an illuminating talk on the particular challenges he has encountered during his research ‘Estimating real-time high street footfall from Wi-Fi probe requests’, as well as explaining the novel problem-solving methods he deployed. A summary of our speakers’ presentations and their slides will shortly be added to the Geo+Data London’s dedicated webpage.

The next Geo+Data London seminar will be on 4 December 2018 and will feature James Ketteley from Mastercard and Justin van Dijk from UCL. Registrations for this event will open shortly.

Packed house at the first Geo+Data London event.

Changes to the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative

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As of 17 May 2018, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) introduced some key changes to the ESRC’s Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (SDAI) to encourage more high quality applications using secondary data from researchers working across all disciplines of social sciences and economics.

These changes to some of the eligibility criteria were:

  • Applicants are permitted to use any major data resource funded by the ESRC or other agencies, national or international, given sufficient justification and appropriate access
  • The maximum funding threshold for applications has been raised from £200,000 (100% fEC) to £300,000 (100% fEC)
  • The maximum duration of proposals has increased from 18 months to 24 months

The inclusion of an Early Career Researcher (ECR) as either Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator is no longer mandatory, although the inclusion of ECR’s is still encouraged.

The ESRC seeks applications with the potential to deliver high-quality and high-impact, policy and practitioner relevant research in social sciences and economics through the deeper exploitation of any major data resource. Many of the ESRC-funded eligible sources of data are accessible via the UK Data Service.

SDAI operates as an open call alongside ESRC’s Research Grants open call and proposals are considered by a distinct panel of experts specifically constituted to support this initiative.

For further information on the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative please contact the [email protected] mailbox.

For more information and details of how to apply, see the ESRC website.

New Data Available – Airbnb rentals and reviews across London and Leeds

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We have recently made a dataset on Airbnb rentals and reviews across London and Leeds available via our safeguarded service.  The dataset, which is supplied by AirDNA LLC, contains 125 data points for over 200,000 Airbnb rentals across London and Leeds to provide unique insights into the performance of each property and host.

The dataset includes:

  • Total historical data (monthly and daily listing performance) for London and Leeds
  • Total host data for London and Leeds
  • Property data for London and Leeds
  • Total review data for London and Leeds

Further information, including detail on the quality and temporal extent, is available in the data profile.

Applying to access

These data are classified as Safeguarded and are available via application only.  You can find out more about the application process or make an initial application on the CDRC website.

About AirDNA

AirDNA provides data and analytics to vacation rental entrepreneurs and investors.  By tracking the daily performance of over 4.5 million listings across 60,000 markets worldwide, AirDNA presents market reports and other data products that feature occupancy rates, seasonal demand, and revenue generated by short-term rentals.