Success Stories

Fall 2020

The Region of Durham is currently 2 ½ years into the successful launch of its Primary Care Outreach Program (PCOP), pairing a paramedic and social worker to provide medical and social supports to vulnerable populations in Durham Region.

The purpose of the current project was to explore best practices and precedents from similar programs around the world and will help inform the direction for expansion of the PCOP program in Durham Region.

Fall 2020

Within the context of COVID-19, there is potential for new Federal and Provincial funding to Municipalities for recovery-focused infrastructure projects. Outside of COVID-19 the Finance Department at Durham Region is regularly assessing how to allocate infrastructure funding. We estimated local economic impact multipliers for different municipal infrastructure projects, including water supply, sanitary sewage, transportation, facilities, fleet, and equipment. Increased municipal...

Fall 2020

The impact of digital transformation on businesses, growth centres and the need for office space in Durham Region was an important topic of interest before COVID-19. With the impact of the pandemic on moving businesses virtually and many employees now working from home, this topic was even more relevant.

The outcome of this project was the production of a report that provides important input into understanding Durham Region's strategy with respect to commercial space availability with...

Fall 2020

Early detection of infection is key to reducing spread of COVID-19. The presence of COVID-19 can be detected in wastewater days before people start showing symptoms, providing a potential early warning of where virus outbreaks are occurring. This project sampled wastewater from multiple processing facilities in Durham Region to identify the presence of the novel coronavirus and direct where to focus testing resources.

Winter 2021

The objective of Durham’s Vision Zero Plan is to ultimately eliminate all serious collisions on Regional / Municipal roadways. Distracted driving is one of the major causes of collisions. The goal for this project was to develop a simulation game/tool prototype that examines the impacts of various distracting elements along a typical roadway on driver behaviour, their collision potential, and potential measures to mitigate the adverse impacts.