New methodologies identifying safe cycling infrastructure, policy and planning in the Australian Urban Observatory.

Background
The Australian Urban Observatory is a digital liveability planning platform measuring and monitoring liveability down to the local neighbourhood level across the 21 largest cities of Australia. Established in 2020, liveability indicators included in the Australian Urban Observatory (auo.org.au) are guided by a comprehensive definition of liveability with the digital portal developed and co-designed overtime in response to the needs to policymakers. The walkability of cities is commonly included in assessments of city liveability and is included in the Australian Urban Observatory but bikeability or infrastructure that supports safe cycling remains unmeasured in Australian cities due to a lack of available and appropriate data sources and the need for new technical and methodologocal approaches.

Purpose
This presentation will present a recently established and ambitious urban spatial research project that is testing new and innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to comprehensively measure infrastructure supporting safe cycling in 40,000 neighbourhoods across Australian cities.

Methods
The transdisciplinary project draws on computer science, artificial intelligence, public health and urban policy to expertise to produce new objective and subjective indicators of cycling. This presentation will provide a review of the most viable machine learning techniques that can be applied to photogrammetry and sources of large scale data collection across Australian cities for the assessment of cycling infrastructure.

Practical implications
This research has been designed to assess an existing urban transport and policy gaps in cycling across Australia. It will be used to develop safe cycling indicators for local neighbourhoods to encourage the use of cycling as a sustainable and health promoting mode of transport. Results will identify neighbourhoods requiring cycling infrastructure intervention and the project will engage with an established national network of policymakers who are already engaged in the use of liveability indicators to inform planning.

Funding
Ian Potter Foundation, Australia.