Tuomas Väisänen aka “Väiski” successfully defended his PhD thesis last Friday!

The defence took place on the Friday 10^th of November 2023 with Grant McKenzie, Associate Professor of Spatial Data Science from McGill University, Canada as the opponent.

See Väiski’s thesis “Diversity of places and people: Using big data to understand languages and activities across geographical space” here.

Earlier in the week, we had the privilege of hosting the opponent McKenzie at our premises and getting to know each other and our respective research groups’ works better, which sparked many new ideas.

The event-packed week culminated with Väiski’s defence and his lovely Karonkka party that followed in the evening.

Finally, after a long and exciting week, our happy new doctor was sent to home with celebrations to enjoy his wonderful achievement.

Hooray & hugs to Väiski! 🥳🤗

And many thanks also to the opponent McKenzie for visiting us and acting as the excellent counterpart for Väiski! 🤗

Continue reading “Väiski defended his PhD thesis – Grant McKenzie as opponent”

Tuomas Väisänen will defend his PhD thesis titled

“Diversity of places and people: Using big data to understand languages and activities across geographical space”

Time: Friday 10^th November, 12 o’clock noon
Place: the Festive hall (Juhlasali) of Language Center (Kielikeskus), University of Helsinki.

Stream: https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l13

Associate professor Grant McKenzie from McGill University will act as the opponent and professor Tuuli Toivonen as custos.

The thesis is available in Helda https://helda.helsinki.fi/items/3b464817-3408-414b-9670-f417fce5a6f0

 

Also:

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Tuomas’s opponent associate professor Grant McKenzie will give a talk with the title

“Place, Privacy, and Mobility: Navigating the Intersection of Location Science and Human Dynamics”

Time: Wednesday 8^th November 10-12
Place: University of Helsinki, Kumpula Campus, Exactum B123

Register for the stream link: https://forms.gle/xJh8r2zjsCSRWFZH7

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You are most welcome to both events!

#30DayMapChallenge was started in 2019 on Twitter by Topi Tjukanov. This daily mapmaking challenge takes place each November, bringing together people passionate about mapping science and art. Maps can be found on Twitter and other platforms using the #30DayMapChallenge hashtag. While the DGL is preparing for the new season in 2023, we suggest checking out the maps that the lab members made almost a year ago.

Day 1, Points. 

Day 2, Lines.

Continue reading “November comes. Looking back on #30DayMapChallenge 2022”

Last week, the Digital Geography Lab organised a workshop for the European Researchers’ Night (Tutkijöiden Yö), one of only five to be hosted by the University of Helsinki’s evening programme at the Helsinki Observatory in the city centre.

At our workshop, we engaged visitors with concepts around urban accessibility, such as multimodal travel times in the Helsinki metropolitan area, one’s personal 15-minute city, and mobility justice between different groups of residents and between different neighbourhoods.

Together with a fantastic team of students, we prepared three interactive tasks for the visitors of the event, that targeted the general public, and was met with ample interest.

At one station, visitors were asked to locate a place important in their everyday lives on a large printed map, and mark it with a small sticker. Next, they would draw their estimate of how far they would reach around this point within 15 minutes, walking. For the next step, we prepared a piece of string that we measured and cut to represent the exact distance an average healthy adult would walk in those 15 minutes. Laying it along the streets and paths in the map, the visitor could then draw the area they can reach precisely into the map, adding to the personal accounts of numerous other visitors before them. Finally, we asked visitors to reflect whether or not the identified area contained all services they needed to access in their everyday lives, such as grocers, libraries, pharmacies, and public transport stops.

Continue reading “URBANAGE workshop as part of the European Researchers’ Night”

Note for our international audience: This post deals with public transportation connections around our campus in Kumpula / Helsinki. As the matter is local, we publish this post in Finnish only.

Otimme hiljattain kantaa uuden Kalasatama-Pasila ratikan pysäkkisijoitteluun Vallilanlaaksossa.

Tausta:

• Helsinkiin on valmistumassa uusi poikittainen raitiotielinja Kalasatamasta-Pasilaan, jota parhaillaan rakennettaan. Linja ohittaa myös Kumpulan kampuksen.
• Kumpulan kampuksen saavutettavuudesta on keskustelu siitä lähtien, kun kampus valmistui vuosituhannen alusta. Myös me tutkimme jo 13 vuotta sitten Kumpulan kampuksen saavutettavuutta. Tuloksia julkaistiin esimerkiksi raportissa Solmukohta vai pussinperä? – Kumpulan kampus pääkaupunkiseudun joukkoliikenneverkossa
  
• Nykyisellä suunnitelmalla, uuden raitiotielinjan varrella on 14 pysäkkiä noin 250 metrin välein.
• Vallillanlaaksossa kampuksemme kohdalla pysäkkien välinen etäisyys on kuitenkin yli 1 km. Se on pisin etäisyys Helsingissä raitiotielle ilman pysäkkiä (tilanne ennen uuden pikaratikan käynnistymistä lokakuussa 2023).
• Keskeinen argumentti julkisessa keskustelussa on ollut, että lisäpysäkki hidastaa ratikkaa “liikaa” ja että “puistossa ei ole ketään”.
• Argumentoimme, että
  • Pysäkittömyys jättää merkittävän määrän potentiaalisia raitiotien käyttäjiä huomiotta niin Kumpulan kampuksella, kuin Vallilanlaaksoa ympäröivillä kasvavilla asuinalueilla. Myös viheralueen käyttäjät ja esimerkiksi Valillanlaakson jalkapallokenttien käyttäjät tarvitsisivat mielestämme pysäkkiä.
  • Kalliin raitiotielinjan suunnittelu ensisijaisesti kulkuneuvon nopeuden näkökulmasta on yksipuolista suunnittelua. Joukkoliikenteen tavoitteena on palvella kulkijoita myös reitin varrella, mahdollistaen lyhyet ja laadukkaat pysäkkimatkat.
• Olemme koonneet alle:
  • Alkuperäisen kannanottomme Helsingin Sanomissa 21.8.2023
  • Helsingin liikenne- ja katusuunnittelupäällikkö Reetta Putkosen vastineen 23.8.2023
  • Oman aikaisemmin julkaisemattoman vastineemme Reetta Putkosen kirjoitukseen

Continue reading “Miksi Vallilanlaakso jätettiin vaille omaa ratikkapysäkkiä?”

We have published the Travel Time Matrix 2023 for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area

What’s new?

• Updated travel times for Walking, Cycling, Public Transport and Private Car based on 2023 situation
• More variation within travel modes (e.g., slow, average and fast walking) to reflect different life realities
• A new computation framework that allows us to easily produce travel time matrices for other cities

The dataset extends the history of travel time matrices from the region produced by the Digital Geography Lab (since 2016, before that ‘Accessibility Research Group’). This also marks the 10-year anniversary of the first travel time matrix, published in 2013. Matrices were also published in 2015 and 2018.

Read more about the data and download it

https://www.helsinki.fi/fi/tutkimusryhmat/digital-geography-lab/paakaupunkiseudun-matka-aikamatriisi-2023

DOI:10.5281/zenodo.7907548

Continue reading “Travel Time Matrix 2023 for Helsinki Metropolitan Area is out”