Yuan Liao

Proximity-based cities emit less mobility-driven CO$_2$ In the quest for more environmentally sustainable urban areas, the concept of the 15-minute city has been proposed to encourage active mobility, primarily through walking and cycling. An urban area is considered a ``15-minute city" if every resident can access essential services within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their home. However, there is an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of this model in reducing car usage and carbon emissions. In this study, we conduct a large-scale data-driven analysis to evaluate the impact of service proximity to homes on CO$_2$ emissions. By examining nearly 400 cities worldwide, we discover that, within the same city, areas with services located closer to residents produce less CO$_2$ emissions per capita from transportation. We establish a clear relationship between the proximity of services and CO$_2$ emissions for each city. Additionally, we quantify the potential reduction in emissions for 30 cities if they optimise the location of their services. This optimisation maintains each city's total number of services while redistributing them to ensure equal accessibility throughout the entire urban area. Our findings indicate that improving the proximity of services can significantly reduce expected urban emissions related to transportation.

Proximity-based cities emit less mobility-driven CO2
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00094

New study using 📱geolocation data to examine the impact of major transit fare subsidies in Germany (Deutschlandticket - DT). Using a time-shifted DiD model, we assessed how DT affected travel behavior in terms of visitation volumes and trips distances across the country doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Mobility and Urban Science in Computational Social Science | Yuan Liao Organizing the 11th International Conference on Computational Social Science (Norrköping, Sweden | July 21-24, 2025).

I wrote up my #IC2S2 2025 takeaways. If you’re into computational social science, mobility data, or urban analytics, I’d love your thoughts.
🔗 Read: yuan-liao.com/post/ic2s22025
#ComputationalSocialScience #UrbanScience #MobilityData #Transport #Segregation #DataScience

An incredible week! 🌟 Proud to have been part of the organizing team, awed by Norrköping’s beautiful views and amazing food, and inspired by conversations with colleagues from around the globe.
Thank you for making this experience so unique, see you at the next one! #ic2s2

So grateful and proud to be part of this year's #ic2s2. All these kind words about today’s tutorials mean the world. Thank you!

Look forward to it!

Great team work with @jorgealgil.bsky.social @sonia-yeh.bsky.social @urbandemog.bsky.social and Laura Alessandretti.

🔍 Key insights:
• Foreign-born minorities often remain socially segregated even while mobile
• Limited mobility range and reduced access to public transport are major barriers
• Improving transport accessibility could meaningfully reduce experienced segregation

Using large-scale smartphone data from Sweden, we show how mobility—or the lack of it—shapes the experienced socio-spatial segregation of foreign-born populations beyond residential neighborhoods.

The effect of limited mobility on the experienced segregation of foreign-born minorities - npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport - The effect of limited mobility on the experienced segregation of foreign-born minorities

Thrilled to share our newly published paper on mobility and socio-spatial segregation: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

#UrbanStudies #MobilityData #SocialSegregation #TransportAccessibility #SmartCities #DataScience #EquityInTransport

🚗⚡How will larger EV batteries reshape charging demand?
At #EVS38, we share our generative model results based on 2021 data from 80K+ BEVs in Beijing: future-scenario daily EV patterns and scaled charging load.
📸 Jordanka Kovaceva
#EVCharging #SmartCities

💡It was a pleasure to share my research.
My talk focused on how we can use large-scale human mobility data to support sustainable and inclusive mobility.
Thank you to the Institute for Analytical Sociology and all participants for an inspiring exchange of ideas!

👇Germany's €49 Deutschlandticket boosted public transport use, seeing a greater increase among lower socioeconomic groups, according to our study using mobile geolocation data (11M+ devices). #publictransport #farecuts #mobility

Glad to share our review paper on socio-spatial segregation and human mobility
📑https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971525000031
Another wonderful collab led by @yuanliao.bsky.social + team work with @sonia-yeh.bsky.social , @jorgealgil.bsky.social & L.Alessandretti

Socio-spatial segregation and human mobility: A review of empirical evidence Socio-spatial segregation is the physical separation of different social, economic, or demographic groups within a geographic space, often resulting i…

🌏💡 Our review article was published on how mobility data—ranging from traditional surveys to emerging GPS and social media datasets—shifts our understanding of socio-spatial segregation.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#UrbanStudies #SocialIntegration #HumanMobility #BigData #EquityInCities

potentmsca.cbs.dk – Ports as Energy Transition Hubs Ports as Energy Transition Hubs

🚢⚡ Join the POTENT Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network to advance ports as clean energy transition hubs in Europe. 🌍
🔍 3 Positions:
1️⃣ Smart Ports Systems Integration
2️⃣ Electrified Ports & Grid Design
3️⃣ Ports Energy Infrastructure & Resilience
📅 Apply now: www.chalmers.se/en/about-cha...

#IC2S2'25 Tutorials deadline is this Friday—Jan 17, 2025.
Submit your tutorial proposal now: www.ic2s2-2025.org/submit-tutor...

Don’t miss our poster at #TRBAM! Join us Tue, Jan 07 (10:15 AM–12 PM ET) in Convention Center Hall A. Check out how we combine mobile app data & travel surveys to synthesize realistic activity patterns of a large population. See you there!

Prof. Jennie E. Brand from UCLA will be a keynote speaker for #IC2S22025 in Norrköping, Sweden.
🎙Causal Inference and Machine Learning for Social Science: Uncovering Effect Heterogeneity.
Learn more: ic2s2-2025.org. Stay tuned for more keynote speakers and updates!

Hi Michael, this is super cool. Do you consider submitting a tutorial proposal again next year for IC2S2 2025?

We look forward to receiving your tutorial proposals!

SEDAC | NASA Earthdata NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center serves as an "Information Gateway" between Earth sciences and social sciences.

Attended a webinar yesterday about Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at NASA. They have many useful resources for urban studies: www.earthdata.nasa.gov/centers/seda... The webnar slides deck and video can be found here: www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/webina...

Day 30 of #30DayMapChallenge: The final map. Visitors travel distances during the first month of the D-Ticket (May 2023). I’m proud to have completed all 30 days of the map challenge. The experience was both immensely fun and deeply rewarding.

Day 29 of #30DayMapChallenge: Overture. Buildings and places in Linköping, Sweden.

Day 28 of #30DayMapChallenge: The blue planet. The largest lake in Sweden by area.

Thanks! We have Section 6.4 Transport accessibility which covers some of these aspects. We also reviewed a few housing, public transport, and urban design practices that affect segregation in Table B.2.

Socio-spatial segregation and human mobility: A review of empirical evidence Socio-spatial segregation is the physical separation of different social, economic, or demographic groups within a geographic space, often resulting in unequal access to resources, services, and oppor...

Update on the review article about human mobility and socio-spatial segregation, where we made structural adjustments and clarified key concepts. Check out our preprint here: arxiv.org/abs/2403.06641

Day 27 of #30DayMapChallenge: Micromapping. The building data (marked in yellow) we got from GSD Property map vector in 2019 should be updated, as it missed a few buildings in the area.

Day 26 of #30DayMapChallenge: Map projections. Flight routes in Perters Projection.

Day 25 of #30DayMapChallenge: Heat. Visitation intensity during the 9-Euro Ticket Scheme.