Student Seminar by Mr. Ka Yiu NG on May 22, 2026, 11:00AM

Title: More-than-Human Urban Accessibility: Veterinary Care and Pet-Friendly Public Transport

Speaker: Mr. Ka Yiu (Benjamin) NG (Department of Geography)

Date: May 22, 2026 (Friday)

Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 nn

Venue: Room 1010, CLL, Department of Geography, 10/F, The Jockey Club Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/ehQUVw9vAM

ITS Student Committee will provide a beverage for registered participants.

Abstract: Traditional urban accessibility research largely focuses on people’s access to resources, offering only a limited account of how more-than-human beings may restrict or enable human accessibility. Scholarship in New Animal Geography calls for closer attention to the agency and subjectivity of more-than-human beings, and to the ways their encounters with humans shape reciprocal relationships. Against a backdrop of rising pet ownership globally and recent debate in Hong Kong about pet-friendly public transport initiatives, this seminar introduces: (1) the current literature on spatial access to veterinary care worldwide; (2) spatial access to veterinary care in Hong Kong; and (3) a preliminary exploration of public perceptions of pet-friendly public transport in Hong Kong.

Bios: Mr. NG holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences (First Class Honours) in Geography & Urban Governance and an MPhil in Geography from HKU. He has gained academic and applied research experience in transport and health through training at HKU, working at UNICEF Hong Kong (Advocacy Officer, Policy & Research) and at the Science Unit at Lingnan University (System Officer) before joining the PhD programme in 2025. His research interests sit at the intersection of GIScience, transport, and health, with a current focus on: (1) applied 3D GIS and accessibility modeling; (2) the built environment and health; and (3) pet-friendly public transportation.

Student Seminar by Mr. Chenming Niu on May 13, 2026, 2:00PM

Title: Unequal Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Identifying Vehicular Drivers of Exposure Disparity

Speaker: Mr. Chenming Niu (Department of Geography)

Date: May 13, 2026 (Wednesday)

Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Venue: Room 1010, CLL, Department of Geography, 10/F, The Jockey Club Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/cgThea0b4d

ITS Student Committee will provide a beverage for registered participants.

Abstract: Traffic-related air pollution is a major source of near-road environmental inequality in dense cities, yet the vehicular sources of exposure disparities are often obscured by broad vehicle groupings and daily average estimates. In this seminar, we present a data-driven framework for Hong Kong that integrates high-resolution traffic counts, street imagery, detector data, machine learning, and computer vision to estimate hourly vehicular NOx and PM2.5 emissions across all road segments. The results reveal substantial exposure disparities across income and ethnic groups, with the main vehicular contributors varying over the day. Delivery fleets play a larger role in daytime disparities, while franchised buses become more important in the evening. These findings show the value of vehicle-specific and time-resolved analysis for understanding environmental inequalities and informing more targeted transport and air quality policies.

Bios: Chenming's research interest lies in traffic emission modeling, shared mobility modeling, environmental justice analysis, and transport equity analysis. Prior to joining HKU, he earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Traffic and Transportation from Southeast University and a Master of Science in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Student Seminar by Mr. Yuan Liang on Apr 28, 2026, 2:00PM

Title: Air Pollution and Urban Mobility: Two Quasi-experimental Designs

Speaker: Mr. Yuan Liang (Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Date: Apr 28, 2026 (Tueday)

Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Venue: Room 1010, CLL, Department of Geography, 10/F, The Jokey Club Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Registration Link: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/L6i8Kxxf2D

ITS Student Committee will provide a beverage for registered participants.

Abstract: I will share two studies that employ quasi-experimental designs to explore the bidirectional causal link between air pollution and urban mobility in urban China. The first study uses thermal inversion, a meteorological phenomenon, as an instrumental variable for air pollution to estimate the causal effect of air pollution on dockless bike-sharing usage. The second applies a difference-in-differences approach to evaluate the causal impact of fare-free public transport on air quality. The findings offer insights into the societal impacts of air pollution through the lens of urban mobility and hold implications for sustainable urban transport policies.

Bios: Yuan Liang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography at Hong Kong Baptist University and a former visiting student in the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. His current research uses causal evidence to explore the linkages between climate change, air pollution, and urban mobility. His work has been published in Transportation Research Part A/D/E, Transportation, and Environmental Research Letters.