College of Engineering Research Team Awarded 2024 Armstrong Fund Grant

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Eleni Christofa, associate professor and Jimi Oke, assistant professor, both of environmental and civil engineering, have been awarded a 2024 Armstrong Fund Grant. 

The Armstrong Fund for Science is awarded to researchers willing to challenge conventions in their field.

With their $40,000, two-year grant, Christofa and Oke are aiming to answer the question: Can bicycle use and schematic maps reduce emissions? “Which is kind of a bold question, says Oke. “But research has shown that 60% of all the trips we would take by car are one to three miles, so there’s a huge potential for bicycles, or even e-bikes.”

A schematic map simplifies the relational information between locations by sacrificing geographical accuracy, like stops on a subway map. The researchers want to see if providing relevant information in this simplified way can increase bicycle usage.

“The literature has shown that [connectivity and available infrastructure] are actually influencing someone’s decision to bike or not,” says Christofa. For instance, bicycle trail maps in the Northampton-Amherst-North Hadley area exist, but not on one, centralized platform. Nor do they do a good job illustrating where points of interest, like grocery stores, fall along the various routes. Christofa also envisions that the maps could layer on bus routes (since local busses have bike racks) to facilitate longer trips.

Another factor that determines if people ride or drive is knowing what type of infrastructure is available: is there a protected bike path or a just a painted on lane shared with cars? “Bikes can be ridden on any road and we’re not showing the road network,” explains Oke. “We’re showing the cycle network and the major infrastructure.” 

To test the effectiveness of these new maps, the researchers will install bike counters around Northampton, Amherst and North Hadley and count cyclists before and after map implementation

Another element of the study is to design a computer algorithm to create these schematic maps for other regions. “It takes time to design a really good map,” says Oke. “But if this can be scaled up and automated, then we can readily apply this to other areas.”

This story was first published by the UMass News Office.