TU Delft & MIT publish article in Urban Studies

As cities around the world see people returning to the streets and outdoor spaces, it has become more important than ever to determine how the way we design, build and use cities possibly influences the spread and containment of airborne diseases such as COVID-19.

To look at this question, as well as others, a collaboration between researchers from TU Delft (Assistant Professor Achilleas Psyllidis, PhD candidate Roos Teeuwen, Professor Alessandro Bozzon), MIT Senseable City Lab, and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions was formed.

The collaboration, which was originally motivated by the Social Distancing Dashboard (SSD), has just published an article in Urban Studies titled: “Cities and infectious diseases: Assessing the exposure of pedestrians to virus transmission along city streets”.

We develop a multi-component risk score to assess pedestrians’ exposure to potential virus transmission along city streets. The proposed multi-component scoring method can be used to assess how city streets can ensure lower exposure to infectious viruses, while they resume their liveliness. It could provide city officials and planners with data-driven insights to prioritize areas at risk and implement customized policies and interventions according to different city settings, at the neighbourhood and street-segment level.
Assistant Professor of Location Intelligence & Spatial Analysis at TU Delft IDE Achilleas Psyllidis

Read 'Cities and infectious diseases: Assessing the exposure of pedestrians to virus transmission along city streets’ to find out more.