Tackling Maths Anxiety
In this community engagement project, we worked with University of Exeter data science researcher Dr Federico Botta and his research team to understand Exeter residents’ views on urban liveability, to help inform his research direction.
From January to June 2025, we carried out consultations through drop-in events and in-depth discussions with smaller community groups. Find out more below, with some photos from the events, along with additional reading/exploring around this topic, and the background to this research project.
Find out the results of these consultations in our summary report:
The public consultations
Through in-depth consultations and drop-in sessions, we reached out to communities in different areas of the city to explore 3 key themes:
- 1. What makes neighbourhoods ‘liveable’?
We explored the idea of liveability – how can a place be somewhere you feel happy to live in? How far would you want to travel for key services or amenities? - 2. How reliable are public transport services, and how does that affect your choices?
We discussed how important delays, cancellations and reliability of public transport are in people’s choices of how to travel. - 3. Is transport affordable for everyone?
Not just public transport – how do people travel, and is it affordable? How does it relate to people’s income?
Project gallery
We went to Exeter Library, ParkLife in Heavitree, and America Hall in Pinhoe to speak to residents and visitors about their views and experiences – huge thanks to everyone who took part, and our volunteers Stevie and Rose for helping run the events! Check out some of the event photos below:
Meet the research team
Dr Federico Botta (project lead)
Federico is a Senior Lecturer in Data Science at the University of Exeter.
His research involves using data science for public good, with particular interests around urban liveability, transport and human behaviour.
Zihao Chen (PhD Student)
Zihao is a PhD student in the Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence.
His research focus is around bus travel times and lateness across England, and what it tells us about inequalities in accessibility.
Tommy Collins (PhD student)
Tommy’s PhD research focuses on how data can help us to understand how ‘vibrant’ urban areas are.
He is also involved with a project monitoring wild animals to understand their ranges and collective behaviours.
Project collaborators:
Prof Riccardo Di Clemente – Previously at the University of Exeter, now at Northeastern University London.
Dr Mario Gutierrez-Roig – University of Essex, sadly passed away in 2023.
Further Reading / Exploring
In the drop-in events, we highlight the benefits of encouraging active and public transport for making a place more ‘liveable’ – it reduces noise and air pollution (especially if the public transport is electric), reduces carbon emissions, reduces traffic, and has many benefits for individuals – for active transport in particular, cost savings and fitness.
We also highlight how some cities, like Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam, are well-regarded for trying to reduce reliance on cars and make spaces more “liveable”: accessible for walking / using mobility aids / cycling, as well as pleasant to be in.
Here’s an interesting article about Amsterdam’s approach, and a couple of TED talks on urban liveability:
These are some of the recent academic papers (all open-access) by the research team:
Chen, Z., & Botta, F. (2025). The geography of inequalities in access to healthcare across England: the role of bus travel time variability. arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.19231.
Botta, F. (2024). Rail journey cost calculator for Great Britain. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 23998083241276569.
Botta, F., & Gutiérrez-Roig, M. (2021). Modelling urban vibrancy with mobile phone and OpenStreetMap data. Plos one, 16(6), e0252015.
Collins, T., Di Clemente, R., Gutiérrez-Roig, M., & Botta, F. (2024). Spatiotemporal gender differences in urban vibrancy. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 51(7), 1430-1446.
Collins, T., Pacheco, D., Di Clemente, R., & Botta, F. (2024). Unveiling social vibrancy in urban spaces with app usage. arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.14943.
Project Background
We worked with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in 2024 to understand community experiences around transport, which contributed to the RAMM Transport Exhibition in the summer.
As part of this process, we connected the community groups with local researchers working in this area – Federico was one of these researchers, along with Dr Diogo Pacheco and Dr Hugo Barbosa. Our events explored transport in the past, present and future – and we built on these discussions for this project.
This project was reviewed and approved by the University of Exeter Research Ethics Committee, application ID: 8897392.
