Project Description
Project Title: Flowcation – Simulating the Ripple Effects of Urban Infrastructure
Project Summary
Flowcation is a data-driven visualization and simulation tool designed to help city planners assess the ripple effects of infrastructure changes on accessibility, equity, and transport efficiency. Built as an open-source extension, Flowcation empowers planners to model how modifications—such as adding a school, clinic, bus route, or cycle path—impact the reachability of essential services within a 20-minute travel window.
By integrating transport data, demographic indicators, and predictive algorithms, Flowcation supports smarter, more inclusive urban planning decisions aligned with Victoria’s 20-Minute Neighbourhood vision.
Challenges Addressed
Delivering the 20-Minute Neighbourhood Plan
Enabling Better Community Housing and Infrastructure Planning
Optimising Transport Networks for School Kids
Problem Statement
Infrastructure changes—no matter how small—create cascading effects across transport networks, service access, and community wellbeing. Yet planners lack tools to simulate these ripple effects before implementation. This gap leads to missed opportunities, especially in low-income suburbs where transport inequity is most severe.
What We Built
Calculates 20-minute reach zones from key locations (schools, clinics, etc.) by transport mode: walk, bike, bus, car.
Allows planners to add/remove infrastructure elements (e.g. bus routes, cycle paths) and see how travel rings expand or contract.
Data Sources
OpenStreetMap: Road and transport network topology
VicRoads: SCATS Traffic signal volume and congestion data
VicRoads: Traffic Signal Geo Data
Research References
VISTA: Travel by time of day, journey to work, trip purpose
VCOSS: Mapping poverty in Victoria
ABS Census: Demographic and housing data
Infrastructure Australia: Ring classification and transport access
Algorithms & Technical Architecture
Graph-based search using OSM nodes and edges
Shapely and GeoPandas to create the transport access rings.
Matplotlib for map rendering
Future Features
Real-time traffic signal priority modeling (e.g. SCATS/SPE/PTIPS)
Community feedback layer for participatory planning
Prophet ML for predictive congestion and travel time adjustments based on weather, roadworks, and seasonality (e.g. school holidays)
Impact
Flowcation isn’t just a visualization tool — it’s a planning companion that helps governments build equitable, resilient, and accessible cities. Simulating infrastructure ripple effects enables smarter investment, reduces transport inequality, and brings the State governments closer to its urban plan vision.
Demo & Screenshots
Please watch our video for more details
Data Story
Intro
Public transport across Greater Melbourne (Inner, Middle, and Outer) takes up the longest travel time among all transport modes.
The further you go out of central Melbourne, the longer public transport takes on weekdays and weekends. This trend pervades year over year, based on data from 2007 to 2024.
This transportation inequity reflects an underlying socio-economic disparity. Outer Melbourne has a larger proportion of economically disadvantaged areas compared to Inner and Middle Melbourne. What’s more - a smaller share of economically disadvantaged areas is concentrated within central Melbourne.
Patterns of disadvantages like these must inform our urban planning. To address these gaps in transportation, the Victorian Government’s urban planning strategy includes a plan for 20-minute neighbourhoods.
The 20-minute neighbourhood policy seeks to establish livable and inclusive neighbourhoods where people are able to access their daily needs within a 20-minute return walk.
The long-term plan includes a sustainable vision for transport: safe cycling networks, walkable streets, and public transport connections.
The Problem
Changes to existing transport systems - no matter how small - have ripple effects.
How can we predict the impact of planned modifications? What are the possible outcomes of these infrastructure changes?
More importantly, how can we assess if low-income suburbs are at a disadvantage compared to high-income suburbs when it comes to urban planning?
Introducing Flowcation
Flowcation is a visualisation tool that simulates the potential impact of changes to transport infrastructure, built to support urban planners in making data-backed decisions.
How It Works
Flowcation visualises targeted locations, calculating how far you can travel within a 20-minute return walk. This area will be visually represented by a travel ring.
You can filter by transportation method: by active transport (walking or cycling), public transport, or private transport.
Features
Travel Ring Generator
Calculates 20-minute reach zones from key locations (schools, clinics, etc.) by mode: walk, bike, bus, car.
Scenario Simulator
Where you can simulate adding or removing new bus routes, cycle paths, or service locations.
You can see how travel rings expand or contract.
Use Case: Identifying Gaps in Existing Transport Design
Building new travel routes requires planners to consider: how many schools are within a 20-minute vicinity? Hospitals? Shopping centres?
Flowcation lets you see all locations of interest accessible within a 20-minute radius.
This helps:
- Visualise shortfalls in 20-minute accessible zones
- Simulate how proposed routes or changes affect accessibility
- Discover areas where new connections could be implemented
Use Case: Measuring Travel Efficiency and Accessibility
Traffic intersections can handle roughly 500 cars per hour at 60km/h, but peak-hour traffic contributes to a surge of up to 800 cars. This creates congestion, limiting the speed of travel.
Flowcation has a built-in feature that shows intersections where congestion is concentrated.
This helps:
- Plan new public transportation routes to diversify existing pathways
- Reduce traffic at intersections during peak hours by limiting private transport vehicles
- Widen the travel ring, helping meet the 20-minute neighbourhood goal
Use Case: Assessing Potentially Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods
Flowcation allows urban planners to focus on specific locations within neighbourhoods to illustrate how wide the 20-minute radius is.
This can be used to discover the disparity in travel time within neighbourhoods of economically disadvantaged areas.
This poses opportunities to:
- Explore improvements in economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods
- Compare the impact of infrastructure changes in low-income areas vs. high-income areas
- Predict how route modifications influence activity in these neighbourhoods
Scalability
Our MVP presents a high-level overview of the potential impact of infrastructure modifications. In the future, we can implement a version powered by Prophet, a forecasting algorithm that accounts for seasonality and external factors like weather conditions and road works.
Flowcation isn’t just a visual tool. It’s one step closer to sustainable and equitable living for all Victorians, helping urban planners design with data-driven solutions.
