Budget: $230,000
Project dates: August 2023 – January 2025
Increasing active transport (walking and cycling) and decreasing private car use have significant health and environmental benefits and is a recognised priority across multiple sectors. The urgency to build neighbourhoods that encourage active transport has been accelerated locally and globally through the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet achieving equitable access to walkable and cyclable neighbourhoods is challenging in low-density sprawling cities like Melbourne. Policymakers and health advocates are keen to understand how to change policies to deliver local living and a cycling-friendly Melbourne and the health and equity impacts of these policies. This is particularly relevant for those living in the most car-dependant areas and experiencing greater systemic spatial and health inequities. At RMIT’s Healthy Liveable Cities Lab (HLCL) we are building a city-wide computer transport and health simulation model for Greater Melbourne capable of assessing the impact of built environment change scenarios on individuals’ transport behaviour choices, their level of physical activity, exposure to air and noise pollution and greenspace, injury risk and health. However, the complexity of the model is a major obstacle in effective knowledge translation and therefore impact.
The VicHealth Impact Grant will catalyse the potential impact of our work by creating a tool to enable knowledge translation with transport, planning and health policymakers, technical practitioners, and advocates. We will co-create a visualisation tool for our transport and health model results with stakeholders to support creating and implementing healthy built environment policies. The tool will provide policy-relevant evidence on built environment change scenarios that maximise active transport uptake, redress spatial and health inequities and inform investments in high impact-built environment interventions. This project will benefit from our well-established collaborations with government and non-government organisations facilitated through HLCL’s Policy Advisory Group (PAG). The PAG is chaired by the CEO of Infrastructure Victoria and includes all responsible sectors for delivering a healthy built environment for all Melburnians, including Department of Transport and Planning.