Thesis subject

MSc Thesis topic: CoolRouting; Heat Stress as impedance variable for your route planner

Routeplanners are commonly used to find the optimal route to our destination. Routeplanners solve the so-called ‘Shortest Path Problem’ and calculate the optimal path from a starting location to destination. Routes are calculated over a graph, that consists of line segments and nodes connecting the lines. The optimal route is defined as one where the cost to travel to the destination is minimized. This cost or also called impedance variable is normally the time needed to travel (fastest route) or the length/distance of line segment of the route (shortest route).

Nowadays routeplanners are commonly used to find the fastest or shortest route to our destinations. It is however sometimes of value to adapt our path to other criteria, like minimal turnings on the route or the least obstacles/traffic lights on our way.

The changing climate will result in more extreme weather conditions and leads to increased periods with more heat waves and overall heat stress in rural, but especially urban areas. Recently an Urban Heat Index map for the Netherlands is published that serves information about the potential heat stress citizen may suffer from during heat waves. This and perhaps other sources like the Urban Heat Index maps (UHI) or the development of the PET-map (Physical Equivalent Temperature) can be useful to include in a routeplanner. Such a routeplanner can inform citizens how to adapt their route to heat stress for their daily journey, bike tour or short walk tour through a city. Also, having an insight in optimal cool routes for a city, one can potentially identify areas in the city where adaptations are needed to increase the liveability for citizen.

Research Objectives

The exact Research Objectives will be formulated with supervisor, but the general objective is:

To develop a routeplanner for citizens (travel mode biking or walking) that takes into account UHI or PET values as measure for heat stress and assess the impact of this special impedance.

Literature

Requirements

Theme(s): Modelling & visualisation; Human – space interaction