Pakistan’s rapid urbanization has most often lacked proper planning, thus leading to an ever-increasing strain on cities’ infrastructure, environment, and public services. With the increase in digitalization of processes, the role of data-driven methods has come to the forefront of urban management across the globe. Pakistan must also embrace this technological revolution within its planning practices. Dr. Momin Ayub Uppal (Associate Professor), at Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) along with Dr. Muhammad Adeel Zaffar, Dr. Safee Ullah Chaudhary, and Dr. Zubair Khalid have identified this lack in their research titled, ”Creating Technological Foundations of Data-Driven Policy Making for Sustainable Urban Development.”

The project identifies complex issues of modern-day cities and will strive to enable the use of technological innovations in data gathering, data analytics, and data-driven decision making in areas such as mapping and analysis of sprawl in major Pakistani cities, smart solid waste management through remote monitoring solutions, analysis of urban mobility patterns, tracking and countering air pollution, tracking spatial prevalence of disease and vaccine coverage, and developing sustainable urban logistics solution. The focus of this research will be fed by socio-economic considerations for example, incorporating gender when determining public transportation routes, as a multi-disciplinary team of national and international academic groups comprising of disciplinary experts will be leading the research. The insights obtained from the developed tools will be used to develop policy guidelines and to promote data-driven urban planning practices. Additionally, long-term impact of this research will be ensured through a continuous dialogue with potential end-users and policy-makers to ensure a far-reaching impact on sustainable urban growth.