Lachlan Birdsey: Modelling Helsinki

Lachlan Birdsey with arms crossed
Dr. Lachlan Birdsey at University of Toronto, Oct. 24, 2018.

October 25, 2018. Computer scientist Dr. Lachlan Birdsey has been a guest of UTTRI since September 24 and will return home to Finland in a few days. The Postdoctoral Researcher of the ATMOS Group, Nano and Molecular Systems Research Unit at the University of Oulu, Finland is looking forward to his first free week in many months.

This time last year, Lachlan was a lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Australia. In March he was offered a position as Lead for the AIPSE Project in Oulu, which he accepted. He left Australia for Finland in June and has since juggled both jobs while slowly winding down his Adelaide duties.

Attracted by Professor Eric Miller’s renowned work in travel modelling, Lachlan visited Toronto to learn from the Travel Modelling Group (TMG) and about their TASHA tool. He is grateful to TMG researchers, particularly James Vaughan and Bilal Yusuf, for sharing their expertise.

The AIPSE Project’s overall goal is to develop ways to improve Helsinki’s air quality by reducing air pollution from traffic emissions. An agent-based transit model of Helsinki will be used to study emissions and traffic flows to develop methods to reduce pollution-induced mortality. Lachlan is keen to create models that are “digestible by government bodies.” He incorporates his knowledge of complex adaptive systems to create models that take human behaviour into account.

“Some aspects of the modelling work will help the policy makers; others, the urban planners. We also want to influence desirable choices by individuals. How do we get them to choose to ride a bicycle instead of drive a car to work?”