ENHANCE Cities

The ENHANCE project investigates how 15-minute city principles can be applied beyond dense urban areas to improve local planning decisions and encourage more sustainable travel behaviour. Through accessibility indicators, travel behaviour analysis and scenario modelling, the project aims to provide evidence for better planning in regional towns and cities.

The concept of the 15-minute city (15mC) — where residents can meet the vast majority of their daily needs within a short walk or cycle — was developed primarily for inner-city districts in major metropolitan centres. Yet this approach holds significant potential for regional towns, cities and outer metropolitan areas that face distinct sustainability challenges: greater car dependence, struggling local retail centres, fragmented housing developments and weaker active travel infrastructure.

The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and is part of the Driving Urban Transitions European network.

Links

• ENHANCE Project Information UCL Website
• ENHANCE Project European website at VU Amsterdam

Publications

• Smith DA (2025) Travel sustainability of new build housing in the London region: Can London’s Green Belt be developed sustainably? Cities 156:105574.
• Jeong & Smith (2025) Improving Infrastructure and Accessibility Indicators for Urban Cycling Networks: Measuring the Accessibility Gap for Safer Cycle Routes in London using Detailed Infrastructure Data and Level of Traffic Stress, CASA Working Paper Number 242.
• Blog post: Improving Indicators of Urban Cycle Network Quality: a Case Study of London Boroughs (CityGeographics)

Team

• Dr Duncan Smith (CASA UCL)
• Dr Joana Barros (Birkbeck)
• Prof Chen Zhong (CASA UCL)
• Prof Mike Batty (CASA UCL)

Contact and Feedback

We welcome feedback on this website and wider topics from the project. We are particularly interested in comments on the datasets included in this website and any additional datasets or changes that would be useful. Please email info@enhancecities.org to get in touch.