Our projects cover a wide range of research interests and methods to enable a better understanding of urban flows and the development of sustainable cities. Explore the full range of our different projects below, or filter to your specific research interests.
PhD Project
Automating and embedding life-cycle assessment in the process of commercial retrofit
A historic under-supply of residential accommodation has meant that the UK now finds itself deep within a housing crisis, the results of which include increasing levels of homelessness and soaring…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 30th September 2019
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Charles Gillott, Danielle Densley Tingley, Buick Davison
PhD Project
The application of Agent-Based Simulations for risk assessment and management processes related to natural hazards.
This project focuses on using a relatively new, simulation-based technique called Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) to model the behaviour of individuals and aggregated agents (e.g. government, regulatory authorities etc.) to gain…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 26th October 2020
Funding Scheme: NA
People: Marcel Bruno Fehr, Lu Zhuo, Martin Mayfield-Tulip
PhD Project
The role of information in determining user behaviours to enhance infrastructure resilience
This PhD project investigates fundamental questions relating to the amount of information, including how and where this should be provided, to produce the onset of behaviours that boost performance and…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 25th October 2020
Funding Scheme: EPSRC Scholarship
People: Toby E. Willis, Giuliano Punzo, Inaki Esanola
PhD Project
Grey-box modelling for residential building thermal costs estimation
The importance of improving the energy efficiency of buildings has been recognised as critical to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from building energy production to meet the UK government’s target on…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st March 2020
Funding Scheme: Energy Institute Scholarship
People: Yulan Sheng, Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Mauricio Álvarez
Research Council Funded
Multi-scale, circular economic potential of non-residential building stock
Reducing the demand for new materials and embodied carbon will be significant challenges that the construction sector faces in the coming decades. This research will build the evidence base to…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 14th February 2020
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Maud Lanau, Danielle Densley Tingley
PhD Project
Understanding the relationship between resource consumption and development levels
The growth of cities simultaneously increases demand for construction material and results in strong inequalities of development. A systematic understanding of the material requirements to improve human living standards may…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 30th September 2019
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Will Mihkelson, Danielle Densley Tingley, Hadi Arbabi, Stephen Hincks
PhD Project
Sustainable housing provision through the vertical extension of existing buildings
A historic under-supply of residential accommodation has meant that the UK now finds itself deep within a housing crisis, the results of which include increasing levels of homelessness and soaring…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 30th September 2019
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Charles Gillott, Danielle Densley Tingley, Buick Davison
PhD Project
Resilience of Transport System to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events
This research project aims to assess the resilience of transport systems under the context of changing climate.
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 30th September 2019
Funding Scheme: University Post Graduate Research Committee Scholarship
People: Qianqian Li, Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Nic Freeman, Craig Robson, Lu Zhuo
Research Council Funded
DecarboN8 - an integrated network to decarbonise transport
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 highlighted the need for urgent, transformative change, on an unprecedented scale, if global warming is to be restricted…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st September 2019
Funding Scheme: EPSRC Network Plus
People: Danielle Densley Tingley
PhD Project
Quantifying Evapotranspiration from Urban Green Infrastructure
This project explores 3 experimental methods to infer and quantify evapotranspiration (ET) from a set of green roof test beds, each with a varied vegetation/substrate combination. The aim of the…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st October 2018
Funding Scheme: EPSRC Scholarship
People: Hamza Askari, Virginia Stovin, Abigail Hathway
PhD Project
Low cost Internet Of Things based sensor networks for air quality in cities
The aims of this project are to develop models and techniques that will afford significantly improved monitoring and communication of the pollution level in cities without the need to significantly…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st October 2018
Funding Scheme: Grantham Centre for Sustainable Future
People: Rohit Chakraborty, Martin Mayfield, Lyudmila Mihaylova, Anthony Ryan.
PhD Project
Characterising Building Geometry at Scale
Building geometry is significant in many ways such as the urban building retrofit and building stock analysis. However, the current approaches to collect building geometry data is highly limited to…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 24th September 2018
Funding Scheme: NA
People: Menglin Dai, Wil O.C. Ward, Danielle Densley Tingley, Martin Mayfield-Tulip
PhD Project
Short-term, long-range estimation to enable pro-active traffic management of National Road Networks
This project uses MIDAS road flow counts and speed data to create data-driven traffic assignment models to be applied to national Strategic Road Network for the analysis of flow patterns.
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 24th September 2018
Funding Scheme: A*STAR Research Attachment Programme Scholarship
People: Alex Roocroft, Giuliano Punzo, Daniel Coca, Martin Mayfield, Muhammad Azfar Bin Ramli.
Research Council Funded
Active Building Centre
The Active Building Centre is researching and developing innovative tools and technologies that will ensure buildings of all scales contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions and a more sustainable…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st September 2018
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Martin Mayfield, Danielle Densley Tingley, Daniel Coca, John Clark, Steve Jubb, Wil Ward, Richard Johnson Menglin Dai, Hadi Arbabi, Ling Min Tan, Walter Bassage, Oktay Cetinkaya
PhD Project
Urban air quality monitoring, mapping and modelling to determine the main drivers of air pollution
The core aims of this PhD project are to understand spatiotemporal variability of air quality and determine the main drivers of air pollution in urban areas by: (a) deploying a…
Project Status: Ongoing
Start Date: 1st October 2017
Funding Scheme: EPSRC and Siemens
People: Said Munir, Martin Mayfield, Daniel Coca
Other Funded Project
Automated Residential Retrofit Assessment Trial Preparation in Partnership with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
UK 2050 decarbonisation target requires rapid deployment of retrofit measures across over 20m existing homes. This project aims to establish and strengthen collaborations on residential retrofit activities with the Barnsley…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 15th January 2021
Funding Scheme: EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account
People: Hadi Arbabi, Danielle Densley Tingley, Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Yulan Sheng
Other Funded Project
Alternative mobility and alternative routes in the Sheffield City Region
This project analysed the main traffic routes in the Sheffield City Region (SCR) and compared them to the optimal routing of electric vehicles and the decreased volumes expected by the…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 15th January 2021
Funding Scheme: EPSRC Quality-Related Fund
People: Giuliano Punzo, Steve Jubb, Toby E Willis, Patricio Ortiz, Oktay Cetinkaya
Other Funded Project
Regional Emissions Budgeting Framework
This project is set to deliver a roadmap for developing a regional emissions budgeting assessment framework which provides a more robust evidence base to inform decisions on emission reduction measures…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 4th January 2021
Funding Scheme: Research England Quality-Related Strategic Priorities Fund
People: Ling Min Tan, Hadi Arbabi, Danielle Densley Tingley, Martin Mayfield-Tulip
Other Funded Project
Quantifying agglomeration productivity potential in long-term infrastructure planning
This project attempts to further our current ability in identifying long-term land-use and transport planning targets by adapting recently developed models at the interface of complexity science and urban economics.
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 1st April 2020
Funding Scheme: Productivity Insights Network Productivity Project Funding
People: Hadi Arbabi, Giuliano Punzo, Stephen Hincks, Jordan Pannell
Other Funded Project
High Fidelity Energy Monitoring through IoT
Inadequate building energy consumption data has long been a barrier for building energy research, but with the rapid progress of new technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), it is…
Project Status: Complete soon
Start Date: 1st January 2020
Funding Scheme: Pitch-In Mini Project
People: Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Richard Johnson, Steve Jubb, Oktay Cetinkaya, Xinyi LI
Other Funded Project
RF systems performance in Smart Cities: Automated NeTwork EvaluatioN iN urbAn Settings – ANTENNAS
The densification of the population in urban environments and the use of wireless technologies and systems means that stress is being placed on the underlying phenomena of radio frequency (RF)…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 1st January 2020
Funding Scheme: Pitch-In Mini Project
People: Oktay Cetinkaya, Steve Jubb, Martin Mayfield-Tulip
PhD Project
An Ecological-Thermodynamic Approach to Urban Metabolism
Cities have evolved as centres of economic growth but are also responsible for high resource consumption and greenhouse gases emission. In the urban metabolism framework, cities are often described as…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 1st October 2016
Funding Scheme: Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures PhD Scholarship
People: Ling Min Tan, Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Danielle Densley Tingley, Paul Brockway
Research Council Funded
Engineering Complexity Resilience Network Plus
Our vision is to identify, develop and disseminate new methods to improve the resilience and sustainable long-term performance of complex engineered systems, including Cities and National Infrastructure, ICT and Energy…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 1st February 2016
Funding Scheme: EPSRC
People: Martin Mayfield, Giuliano Punzo, Hadi Arbabi
PhD Project
Urban Productivity & Spatial Patterns Across Scales – A Multi-Scale Exploration of Urban Networks and Their Hierarchical Configurations
Understanding the nuances at play across different spatial scales is of crucial importance when considering urban economic-energetic size-cost performance, specifically when longer-term consequences are considered. Through the application of an…
Project Status: Complete
Start Date: 1st August 2015
Funding Scheme: NA
People: Hadi Arbabi, Martin Mayfield-Tulip, Philip McCann, Gordon Dabinett