Live Labs 2 projects all pass “capable of successful delivery” assessment
Shortlisted Live Labs 2 projects have successfully met the criteria to move to the deployment and procurement phase under the £30m Government-funded innovation programme.
The final assessments of the seven projects came at the end of a three-month fully-funded mobilisation phase where project teams developed their proposals into a specified and costed programme of works. The aim of this phase has been to ensure that each potential Live Lab is capable of successful delivery.
The three-year, UK-wide programme has been developed by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT), funded by the Department for Transport, and follows on from the highly successful Live Labs 1 programme.
The seven schemes will embark on a three-year innovation and discovery process under the theme of 'decarbonising local roads' working across four interconnected areas:
A UK centre of excellence for materials – providing a centralised hub for research and innovation for the decarbonisation of local roads materials, developing a knowledge bank, real-life conditions testing and sharing and learning insights: North Lanarkshire Council and Transport for West Midlands.
Corridor and place-based decarbonisation – a suite of corridor and place-based decarbonisation interventions covering urban through to rural applications, trialling, testing and showcasing applications within the circular economy and localism agendas: Wessex partnership (Somerset County Council, Cornwall Council and Hampshire County Council), Devon County Council, and Liverpool City Council.
A green carbon laboratory – examining the role that the non-operational highways ‘green’ asset can play in providing a source of materials and fuels to decarbonise highway operations: South Gloucestershire Council & West Sussex County Council.
A future lighting testbed – a systems-based examination of the future of lighting for local roads to determine what assets are needed for our future networks and how they can be further decarbonised across their lifecycle: East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
And the seven approved projects are:
Highways CO2llaboration Centre for materials decarbonisation, Transport for West Midlands: supporting upskilling and developing a team in the West Midlands to decarbonise highways via two initiatives, including a ‘Highways CO2llaboration Centre’, and demonstrator sites showcasing and monitoring innovative decarbonised highway materials
UK Centre of Excellence for Material Decarbonisation in Local Roads, North Lanarkshire Council: creating a centre that will develop a materials testing programme identifying and deploying the latest tech for road construction, in addition to testing and deploying recycled materials from other industries to build roads
A net carbon-negative model for green infrastructure management, South Gloucestershire Council and West Sussex County Council: aims to develop a first-of-its-kind approach to creating a net carbon negative model for building and delivering green infrastructure, for example recycling biomass from green waste
A382 Carbon Negative Project, Devon County Council: aims to drive changes to the design, construction and maintenance in typical aspects of highway construction to reduce carbon emissions, and to build a new link road including walking and cycling options
Ecosystem of Things, Liverpool City Council: aims to introduce an ‘Ecosystem of Things’, exploring a scalable and transferrable approach to understanding various systems (including design, public spaces, materials/process technology, recycling infrastructure and the legal, contractual and procurement processes) at city level to embed and adopt decarbonisation initiatives
Decarbonising street lighting, East Riding of Yorkshire Council: plans to work on increasing efficiency for low carbon lighting to make sure they can still be clearly seen by drivers and to create a framework for an alternative manual for highway lighting, signing and road marking
Net Zero Corridors, Wessex Partnership: will pioneer net zero roads that are built without creating more carbon emissions overall in Somerset, Cornwall, and Hampshire in 9 ‘net zero corridors’ linking rural and urban areas
Roads minister Richard Holden said, “Taxpayers want to get the biggest bang for their buck, promote high-skilled jobs in the UK and ensure that we can maintain and improve our road network in the least environmentally damaging way possible.
“This targeted £30m investment in world-leading pioneering and innovative technologies will help harness the first-rate skills of British science and industry to help us reduce both the costs and environmental impact of construction, operation and delivery of our roads while boosting regional connections and providing high-skilled jobs across the country.”
ADEPT president Mark Kemp said, “The decarbonisation of highways infrastructure is both hugely challenging and vital as local authorities work to meet zero targets.
“Decision-making and behavioural change is as fundamental to success as supply chain and materials, which is why we focused on a fully-funded mobilisation phase. Having procurement and legal strategies already in place will ensure that project procurements run smoothly with potential partners understanding what programme expectations mean for deployment.
“With partnerships drawn from all over the sector from academia, industry, supply chain partners we will be able to share learning and innovation across the UK and internationally. I am excited to see what comes next.”