On May 31st, COLINE welcomed Matteo Bruno, Associate Researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, for a highly interesting webinar on his recent paper, “A universal framework for inclusive 15-minute cities”. The article, published in Nature Cities, was featured in The Washington Post, The Economist and Politico.
The core of the talk was the 15-minute city platform, an open-access tool designed to quantify and visualize urban accessibility using open data, GPS tracks, and routing algorithms. This platform allows users to evaluate how close neighbourhoods are to the 15-minute city ideal—where essential services are within a 15-minute walk or bike ride—and to identify inequalities in accessibility between and within cities. The tool offers relocation suggestions to improve accessibility and inclusivity, supporting data-driven urban transformation. Among other “What-if Platforms” developed by Sony CSL, this platform aims to help policymakers and the public assess and improve urban environments.

Matteo’s presentation highlighted how this approach empowers decision-makers and the public to explore new urban scenarios, fostering more inclusive and sustainable cities. Besides the published paper in Nature Cities, he also gave insight into some of his other research areas. Among others, the team investigates the relationship between 15-minute cities and CO2 pollution, demonstrating with data how optimising accessibility may decrease pollution. Further work in progress includes projects on questions how access to services affects car dependency, based on simulations for several large cities and how green areas may increase biodiversity, mitigate climate change and promote public well-being.