Launch of Digital Greenwich Connect: “We are a progressive, innovative council with big ambitions for our borough.”

Last week saw the launch of Digital Greenwich Connect, a new partnership set to deliver next generation connectivity in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Teams from DG Cities, our technology partner, ITS and the Council, led by Councillor Anthony Okereke, joined residents, business leaders, community groups and media to inaugurate the £2m joint venture to deliver ultrafast digital infrastructure within the borough.

Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Councillor Anthony Okereke gives the inaugural speech

Almost every technological innovation, from electric vehicle charging to smart energy meters, relies on fast, reliable and affordable digital connectivity. A new partnership has been launched that aims to make the Royal Borough of Greenwich one of the most digitally connected areas in the country.

The new company, Digital Greenwich Connect Ltd, has been incorporated to design, build, maintain and commercialise a 21 km full-fibre, gigabit-capable network infrastructure. The venture was formally launched by Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Councillor Anthony Okereke at a packed event in Woolwich Works in south-east London on Thursday 23rd February.

This new digital highway is a £2m joint venture between DG Cities and full-fibre provider ITS Technology Group. Each company has invested £1m into the programme. Digital Greenwich Connect will substantially improve connectivity in the area, at an affordable price, while enabling public service transformation and an improvement in digital skills. This aligns to the Council’s ambitious new corporate strategy: ‘Our Greenwich’.

“This is one of a number of innovative steps we are taking to ensure our residents and businesses have access to fast, reliable and affordable digital connectivity and to support the delivery of modern Council services. It underpins our ambition for our communities set out in ‘Our Greenwich’ and reinforces our position as a forward-thinking, innovative council.”

— Councillor Anthony Okereke

Innovative new deployment techniques are being used as part of the network, minimising the impact on the environment and on local residents and transport users by utilising existing public infrastructure wherever possible. Internet service providers using the network will be able to offer speeds of 1,000mbps and beyond, providing a highly reliable service for businesses, public services and residents.

In its initial launch phase, the network will cover a 21km area within Woolwich, with further expansion planned. It will provide a full-fibre, ultrafast, gigabit-capable network infrastructure and will equip businesses, schools, residents and students with access to internet speeds that underpin modern working and modern living. It is conceived in a true area-wide, inclusive approach, for residential and business users. It has been designed to ensure that social housing and community centres are included in the strategy, so that those on the front line of providing support and care in the community will not be held back by connectivity issues.

Tony Hughes, Daren Baythorpe and Trevor Dorling

“Fast, reliable connectivity is vital to businesses, attracting investment, supporting innovation and improving services for local residents - particularly as many more people now rely on high-speed broadband to work at home. ”

— Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS Technology Group

After the launch speeches came two lively panel discussions, one focusing on business, the other on the opportunities for residents. President of the South East London Chamber of Commerce, Helen McIntosh highlighted the diversity of businesses of all scales and industries in Greenwich, from submarine telecoms to international names in film production. The panel underscored the importance of fast connectivity across sectors, and its role in building economic resilience, growth and attracting investment.

In the residential discussion, the panel looked at connectivity as the cornerstone of achieving digital inclusion aims. Jamie Carswell, Director of Housing and Safer Communities in Greenwich made a valuable point about embracing the wider, less direct benefits of digital inclusion initiatives, such as the opportunities to bring different generations together. Guests also had the chance to see some of the technology close-up, thanks to a display of the fibre and junctions by the ITS team.

“Today is the culmination of many years’ work to ensure that Greenwich has the digital infrastructure that is essential to a modern economy – one that reflects the needs and aspirations of businesses and residents, and supports the delivery of the next generation of public services. ”

— Trevor Dorling, Managing Director DG Cities

Find out more: digitalgreenwichconnect.com

More cupboards, fewer orbs: visualising the smart city

For our latest piece, we’re looking at the way we communicate aspects of our work – specifically, the images we use to illustrate the smart city and the applications of IoT tech. Communications Lead, Sarah Simpkin, proposes we move away from waves of light and flying numbers and focus instead on showing the tangible difference an innovation could make to a place, and to the lives of people that live and work there.

Smart city images suggested by Midjourney AI

What comes to mind when you think of a smart city. A web of blue and white orbs against an evening sky? Maybe some icons floating above the rooftops, or a wave of binary superimposed on a cityscape? A turquoise infographic or two? Search ‘smart city’ and you can see just how uniform this visual shorthand has become.

Motion blurs and flying numbers over the city are supposed to signify an efficient flow of systems, data, energy and information. According to colour theorists, blue is the colour of trust and clarity, as opposed to red, used in a similar context to signify risk or data security. The web or net symbol is a very literal way of making visible the idea of connectivity, of linking nodes. But technology has moved on from the telephone line – it isn’t so linear. In a way, these images are drawing on analogue concepts to try and visualise today’s dispersed, wireless networks. They pretend to map sensors and data points of various city systems, but are mostly sci-fi really.

Early ideas of the smart city didn’t draw on the same visual references. In 2008, IBM launched their Smarter Planet vision, which proposed exploiting the interconnectivity of power grids, food, water, traffic and healthcare systems, enabled by “sophisticated analytics and algorithms that could make sense of it all.” The concept was by Ogilvy & Mather and IBM, and the visual language was developed by San Francisco agency, Office. There were no webs of light, but instead, colourful motifs that illustrated the project’s objectives. As Office wrote in their case study, it was “a graphic language that could illustrate these complicated solutions in a way that was visually arresting and distinctive, yet simple and approachable enough to be easily understood around the world.”

IBM Smarter Planet advert in an airport © Office: “Inspired by the creative vision that designer Paul Rand developed for IBM several decades ago, we adopted his boldness and “wink” in a way that’s unusually approachable for big tech.” https://visitoffice.com/work/ibm

Somehow, from the singular idea that connected technologies could improve urban life, tech firms ended up with a much more nebulous way of expressing this connectivity. You could argue that the resulting imagery has distanced useful technological advances from their purpose, and from the people that could stand to benefit. And just as these illuminated webs are a bit of a turn-off, so are many visualisations of future transport - I’m thinking of the ones that show beatific couples spirited around in shuttles between futuristic towers in a perpetual golden hour. There is a lie in their two-dimensional promise of the future, because it doesn’t see the city as a holistic, complicated whole. A world with self-driving services may not be so far away, but they won’t necessarily be the defining element of our streets. Some of us will probably still ride old bikes, there will be people walking, wheeling, signposts, deliveries, litter, trees – all the chaotic, unplanned details that give a city life.

What do the components of a smart city really look like?

For a while now, I’ve been asking the DG Cities team to send me site photographs of any new installations – “no image too boring” – and they have delivered. IoT, ultrafast connectivity, damp monitors: none of these announce themselves with a beam of light, the reality is much more prosaic. In fact, much of the action is buried underground or in a cupboard. A camera on a lamppost, a small white box on the side of a brick wall, easily mistaken for a meter cabinet. But what that box represents is the ability to easily switch broadband supplier – the contents of that box help council tenants get a better deal. And that camera, connected to a monitoring app that alerts the maintenance team to issues, makes life harder for fly-tippers, gathers evidence more efficiently and helps to improve the neighbourhood.

There’s perhaps a reason why mobile masts and boxes aren’t overtly shown – in my view, much could be done to improve their urban presence. But picturing technology as an ominous urban forcefield can’t do much for public engagement either, particularly when it comes to connecting with those sceptical of big data, 5G and most recently, the idea of the 15-minute city. What’s more, the sophisticated new AI imaging tools we have at our disposal may just generate more of the same. As these models learn from existing visual references, we could find ourselves bathed in binary, in an echo chamber of ever more clichéd imagery.

But it’s easy to grumble. What should we be trying to show instead? I think we should be focusing on the outcome, on what we anticipate a new service or solution could deliver. Not to oversell it, but to illustrate what it’s supposed to do. If we’re looking at the potential impacts of some of our IoT, electrification or connectivity projects, for example, the picture is very different.

It might just look like a child doing their homework, or streaming a game. It could mean interviewing for a job without the screen freezing awkwardly. It might be the quiet rounds of an electric bin lorry, a safe journey home from a night out in a shared mobility service, or a new way to gather a community’s views on local issues. Or it could be a lifeline – a health alarm, a home free of mould and damp, an accessible link to vital services. Technology touches so many aspects of life, from the mundane to the extraordinary, and it is these human interactions that DG Cities is most interested in.

So, when we’re choosing an image for our own communications, we’re going to try not to default to the industry standard. No more retro futuristic webs of light, because for DG Cities, the future of the smart city is about people – and understanding what technology can do to make their lives better. Even if that really looks like a box in a cupboard.

Where would you charge an EV? Taking a holistic look at mobility across Greenwich housing estates

We have talked a lot about decarbonising buildings and heating in our recent blogs, so now some news of a transport project we’re excited to be getting started on. Our Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith introduces our latest work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich on the next generation of mobility hubs, assessing the impact of new transport solutions on the shared spaces of a housing estate.

For some time now, DG Cities has been working on projects that seek to understand the decarbonisation challenges that transport, in all its forms, brings. Transport is more than a service, it is the glue that binds together social cohesion and complex aspects of people’s lives; it facilitates access to life’s necessities, from work and admin to recreation and education. Whether you live in a city with good public transport links, or in a car-dependent rural spot, there are nuanced decisions to be made about getting from a to b.

With the phasing out of the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles getting rapidly closer, a large part of our mobility work has been looking at the infrastructure required to support the transition to electric vehicles, whether for individuals or industry. In all our research, a primary concern flagged by those we have interviewed and surveyed has been access to a reliable and fairly priced charging network.

Work done with some of our partners, including Field Dynamics as part of Project REME, has helped us look at charging solutions for the large number of people who lack access to off-street parking in rural locations. Our latest work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) takes us back to an urban environment, looking at the complexities of parking and charging on the Borough’s housing estates, and exploring ways to support residents in their transition to zero-carbon vehicles.

We have benefited from the insight gained through our work with developers, particularly where we have helped them future-cast transport trends and understand the changing wants and needs of their residents over a 15 or 20 year phased build out. This helped us create a picture of changing behaviours and the flexible approach which can be applied to supporting transport requirements.

Initially, our discussions with RBG Housing were centred around supporting the transition to electric vehicles for council tenants by identifying opportunities and delivery models for siting charge points on housing estates. DG Cities takes a whole-city approach to understanding the diversity of needs – and understanding that change in one area can impact many others. The project has now developed into a more holistic look at modal choices and offers on different estates, and what could be delivered to widen access, not just to electric vehicles, but to other sustainable and active travel solutions.

Would residents want to look at identifying space in the estate for cycle schemes, e scooter trials, car club vehicles? How does this impact on the public realm and shared spaces around the estate? From these lines of enquiry, we began thinking about a bespoke mobility hub designed with the specific wants and needs (and physical limitations and opportunities) of the borough’s differing types of estate and its residents.

We’re at the very beginning of this exciting piece of work. Initially, we’re looking at different estate typologies, spread across the Borough, to develop pilot designs. Working with colleagues from Greenwich Council, we have identified five estates which fit one or other of these categories. Our research and project development approach is always human-centric, and the estate mobility hub pilots is no different – over the next three months we’ll be working with residents and Council officers to create a template for a model which could then be rolled out across Greenwich.

Watch this space…

To develop safe, trustworthy self-driving services, we need to bring people on board

This week, DG Cities is at the IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona. Head of Research and Service Design, Ed Houghton will be presenting lessons from our work on projects such as Endeavour and DRisk. For more than five years, we have been helping people imagine the ‘self’ in self-driving and envision what a future service could look like; and in doing so, deepening our understanding of the public’s needs and concerns. We have become a UK leader in attitudes to self-driving technology, and we’re excited to be in beautiful Barcelona to share our insights, as Ed explains...

Barcelona; Torre de Collserola on the Tibidabo hill

Imagine, for a second, what you would do if your taxi turned up at your doorstep with no driver. It still turned up – in fact it turned up on time, doors opened, and invited you to get inside to drive to your destination. Would you get in, sit back and relax, or would you ride on the edge of your seat, anxious for the journey to end?

This experience isn’t necessarily too far in the future. Self-driving vehicle trials have been underway across the UK for several years, with projects exploring how to ensure the technology is ready to offer this type of service. Just last week, the CAVForth project in Scotland trialled a self-driving bus on a real-life route across the Forth Bridge. Not quite a taxi, and there are still safety personnel involved, but the tech being tested is always improving.

The barriers to successful delivery aren’t necessarily tech-based, however (though there are still plenty of tech barriers to overcome!) In fact, we know from our research that there are key barriers among consumers, in their attitudes to self-driving services, and to AI more generally. Decision-making systems which support, or even remove the need for a person to make decisions, are often viewed with considerable mistrust. For example, DG Cities research on trust in AI-based self-driving services shows that almost a quarter (23.6%) of the public are yet to be convinced, neither trusting nor mistrusting self-driving services.

That is why, at DG Cities, we focus on bringing the public into the process of designing and developing AI-based transport. To build trust, we must incorporate diverse perspectives and needs into the service design approach. We cannot design new services without first understanding what the people that will ultimately benefit from them need and want.

We also need to make sure that we go to the public to meet them where they are. This means physically (and digitally) convening discussions in ways which are inclusive and accessible, and making sure that participants are able to fully engage with discussions about their visions for the future of AI-based mobility, such as self-driving cars.

“We need to make sure that we go to the public to meet them where they are. This means physically (and digitally) convening discussions in ways which are inclusive and accessible.”

— Ed Houghton

A good example of this in action is the delivery of the national roadshow for project D-RISK, which is a project designed to develop a driving test for AI based self-driving services. By crowd sourcing the most unexpected, bizarre and unpredictable driving experiences, the public can help to train vehicles to deal with the most complex and unique scenarios (‘edge cases’). As part of our roadshow we travelled across the UK, to museums, universities, and outdoor markets, to meet people and hear their stories. As well as contributing edge cases to our research, this gave us a unique perspective on wider attitudes to emerging technologies.

What these projects brought into view is that a key issue with current approaches to AI tech, and IoT innovation in general, is that there isn’t enough dialogue and discussion with the public about what they want or need. If we are to build services that are trusted, valued and most importantly adopted, we have to get much better at listening, learning and building them with the people we hope will use them in the future.

Ed Houghton is speaking at the IOT Solutions World Congress on January 31st and February 1st 2023.

Do you know how clever a smart electric vehicle charger can be? Launch of our BEIS-funded smart charging research

Some of the barriers that deter consumers from making the switch from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles include anxiety around charger availability and range. There are a number of technologies available to mitigate these concerns. But are the public aware of the smart capabilities of home charging, for example? To better understand perceptions of EV charging, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) asked DG Cities to conduct a national survey. The results shed light not only on consumer attitudes, but also on areas where improvements are needed to accelerate EV adoption. On the day of the report’s publication, Head of Research and Service Design, Ed Houghton introduces the findings.

Exploring how consumers understand EV smart charging

Transport is the largest contributor to UK domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, responsible for 27% in 2019. As such, it is an area requiring rapid transition to low/no carbon alternatives. [1] Battery electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have become an increasing presence on our roads – one in ten new vehicles purchased in 2022 were EVs, with sales increasing by 40%. [2] This trend has been growing year on year, as more vehicles enter the market offering more choice and more competitive price points.

A big challenge, however, is how to ensure the UK has the necessary charging infrastructure to support the transition to electric vehicles. Range anxiety is a known concern among drivers. For a long time, worries about when and how to charge have prevented people from switching to EVs. One of the benefits of EVs over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is the relative ease with which they can be charged form home, if consumers can afford to, and have access to a home chargepoint. As sales of EVs have increased, sales and installations of home chargepoints have lagged behind, even though new smart functionalities have come to the market. Smart charging is a benefit as it enables consumers to manage how and when to home-charge their EV and to control charging remotely.

But to what extent are consumers aware of the value of smart chargepoints? And how clear are their different functions to consumers, given the number of chargepoints on the market? In 2022, we were asked to help the Government answer these questions. The DG Cities team undertook a national survey of EV consumers to find out more.

The first national survey of EV smart chargepoint attitudes and consumer behaviours

DG Cities was excited to be asked by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to explore this area in detail through a national survey of EV consumers, and to provide a useful baseline for new regulations designed to support improvements in the smart chargepoint market.

Working with BEIS, we delivered a literature review of recently published data and insights to develop a survey that captured views and behaviours. We partnered with YouGov to develop the national sample of EV and hybrid vehicle owners to distribute the survey among. We developed questions that investigated various aspects of vehicle charging – including preferences over location, charging time and chargepoint functions – and we asked respondents to share their views and interest in purchasing a smart chargepoint in the future.

Findings

Our survey was completed by over 1,002 electric vehicle and plug-in electric vehicle owners in March 2022. Some of the key findings were:

• Most battery EV owners have a dedicated chargepoint at home: Two-thirds (66%) of battery-electric car drivers have a dedicated chargepoint at home. However, the majority (66%) of respondents with battery-electric vans have a 3-pin cable as their main charger, which doesn’t allow charge scheduling.

• Smart functions are increasingly prevalent: The top three functions are charge scheduling (41%), connecting to the vehicles on-board computer (39%) and internet connectivity (36%). This indicates that many of the chargepoints EV drivers own have at least some degree of ‘smartness’.

• For those who schedule their smart charging, most have a positive experience: The majority agree that they can view their current charging schedule with ease (67%); change the charging schedule with ease (63%) and monitor the cost of their charging with ease (77%).

• Overriding schedules is common, which may have an impact on the grid at times of high load: The results show that a quarter (26%) of participants never override their charging schedule. However, over half override their schedule up to 50% of the time. A few respondents override every time they charge, suggesting that they may not have the scheduled charging set up to suit their needs.

• Workplace charging is still uncommon: A third (30%) of participants use workplace charging. Over 60% say that their workplace either does not have the facilities, that they do not go to a physical workplace or choose not to drive to work.

Growing smart charging in the future

Our work for BEIS highlights that there is growing interest amongst consumers of smart functionalities, particularly the ability to schedule charging. There are, however, some barriers that need to be overcome for consumers, particularly when it comes to the complexity of the products on offer, and standardisation of chargepoint technologies.

Data and insights of this type are important for industry and policymakers to understand progress towards net zero. DG Cities is excited to have partnered on this work, and we’re looking forward to seeing how industry, and adoption by consumers, evolves in the future.

To read the new research, click here. To find out more about our research into consumer behaviour when it comes to EVs and some of the projects we have been working on in this field, download our Electric Vehicles Community Insights Report, 2022.

[1] Department for Transport (2021) Decarbonising transport: a better, greener Britain.

[2] Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (2023) Annual vehicle sales figures.

Considering people, not just properties: when it comes to decarbonisation, what makes a home 'hard to treat'?

DG Cities and the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL have teamed up on a government study to investigate hard to decarbonise housing. An estimated 10 million homes Britain are difficult to insulate or improve by conventional means. The project, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), aims to identify these homes, define what makes a home ‘hard to treat’ or ‘hard to decarbonise’ (in the context of energy efficiency and low carbon heating), develop a practical framework to help inform policy and guidance to tackle challenging properties. Head of Research, Ed Houghton explains more…

Stretching targets but limited progress

The UK government is committed to achieving net zero carbon by 2050. To reach this target, significant sectors of the UK’s economy must undergo a considerable transformation. One major sector is the built environment. Data by the UK’s Climate Change Committee highlights that heat in buildings accounts for 468 MtCO2e or 37% of UK annual greenhouse gas emissions. If this is reduced it could deliver considerable progress towards the government’s net zero objectives. 

The challenge however isn’t a simple one – the complexity of the UK’s built environment, the diversity of housing stock and types, regional variation and history of many buildings means that ‘treatment’ for reducing emissions is not a quick fix. For the most difficult – termed “hard-to-treat” - the issues are complex, so it is important to be intentional and evidence-based in any approach to their improvement. 

What exactly is a ‘hard to treat’ or ‘hard to decarbonise’ home?

Definition matters, and this is part of the challenge we’re exploring in this work. A common industry definition describes hard-to-treat homes and properties as those which are difficult to make energy efficient through conventional improvements, such as cavity insulation, loft insulation or low-carbon heating solutions, like heat pumps. Very hard-to-treat are often rural, heritage, and off the gas grid. Estimates put the number of hard-to-treat homes in the UK at around 10 million.

But we’re also interested in understanding whether it is more useful to describe these homes as ‘hard to decarbonise’. Given targets are specifically focused on decarbonisation, academia and international policymakers are increasingly adopting this term. The terminology is broader, and reflects on the need to tackle these properties for the purposes of achieving legally binding targets. Others working in the space, perhaps focused on fuel poverty, may use a different phrase entirely, such as 'hard to heat'. Semantics, in this case, are important to consider: treatment doesn’t necessarily suggest long-term improvement, whereas approaches to decarbonisation are often sustainable and deliver impact over time.

Decarbonisation and fuel poverty

Tackling hard-to-treat homes will not only support progress towards the Government’s net-zero goals. There are also real economic, social and health benefits to improving the quality of the most difficult to improve housing stock – particularly given the ongoing cost-of-living crisis affecting people across the country. Many in hard-to-treat homes are struggling to make ends meet, with a much larger proportion than ever before entering fuel poverty.

For example, properties with uninsulated solid walls had the highest rate of fuel poverty (22.5% of households), compared to 8.0% of those with insulated solid walls.* A similar trend follows for households with uninsulated cavity walls compared to insulated cavity walls (15.0% vs 8.3%). Unsurprisingly older homes are more frequently hard-to-treat, and their residents are more likely to be in fuel poverty: 21.7% of households living in pre 1919 homes were in fuel poverty in 2020, compared to 10% of those built between 1965 and 1985; and less than 5% of those built after 2002. Therefore, tackling hard-to-treat homes, particularly among older and heritage properties, could also alleviate the issues presented by fuel poverty. 

Seeking best practice

The diversity of housing stock in the UK means there is no one-size fits all solution. This is why, through this work, we’re not only building a set of key terms and definitions that describe problems and solutions, we’re also constructing a practical framework to help decision-making in industry and across policy, with guidance for tackling challenging properties.

The efficacy of treatment approaches will of course differ considerably, by context, materials, housing archetype, resident behaviour. We know therefore that we must capture and shed a light on the effectiveness of holistic solutions, and provide depth and detail to support those exploring treatment options through the framework. We’re also keen to highlight what works, and draw on real-life examples from across industry to assess not only the challenges that hard-to-treat properties present, but the practical interventions that have been proven to work. 

Over the coming weeks and months, DG Cities and UCL Bartlett School of Architecture are undertaking research to better define and map ways forward for hard-to-treat homes. We’ll be speaking to leaders across the housing and energy industries, academia and third sector to collect insights and build case studies. We want to draw out examples from across Great Britain – and are keen to chat to as many organisations and individuals as possible about the challenge, and opportunity, we all face in improving the quality of our homes.

To find out more, and to take part, visit: https://www.dgcities.com/hard-to-treat-homes

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Data: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-fuel-poverty-statistics-report-2022

Welcome Sam, our IoT Project Manager!

A cheerful piece of DG Cities news for our final blog of the year: a welcome to the newest member of our team, Sam Grounds, our IoT Project Manager. Sam joined us on a placement as a graduate trainee and liked it so much he decided to stay. He’s brought some great skills to the team, and has already been getting stuck into a range of projects, from a smart homes initiative to improve housing maintenance, to the trialling of IoT cameras to reduce antisocial behaviour.

Image: Diliara Garifullina

It’s exciting to have joined the DG Cities team full-time as IoT (Internet of Things) Project Manager. Having been seconded to the company for six months as part the graduate programme at the Royal Borough of Greenwich, I had the chance to experience the innovative and exciting world of DG Cities before I joined. One of the things I appreciated from the start was the chance to work with this talented team of specialists with backgrounds in such a wide variety of sectors.

My academic background is in geography. I studied this at the University of Manchester, with a year studying abroad in the USA at the University of Vermont. My focus was human geography, which introduced me to the themes around urban development, innovation, energy, health and IoT that are at the heart of what I’m working on now.

After university, I lived in Australia for two years, travelling and working before returning home to start the Local Government Association’s National Graduate Development Programme, based in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. My initial role was in Children’s Services, then I moved to DG Cities for my second placement – and haven’t looked back! Already, I have worked on a variety of projects, including decarbonisation, fly-tipping monitoring and energy reduction initiatives.

At the end of October, I joined DG Cities full time as IoT Project Manager. My focus is continuing to develop our IoT programme, and there are a few exciting projects in this area coming up. The first is a partnership with Sense, a household energy monitoring device that uses AI and machine learning to monitor the electricity consumption of appliances in the home. The pilot project will involve the installation of Sense devices in 40 council owned homes across the Royal Borough of Greenwich, as well as carefully developed behavioural interventions. The behavioural science aspect to projects at DG Cities is full of new experiences and lessons for me; I’m excited by the potential of behaviour change and technology interventions to work together – this behavioural aspect has added an interesting new layer to some of the projects I have been working on.

Smart Homes is another project we are delivering, in partnership with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, where we are planning to install environmental sensors and Smart Fire Detection Systems in 160 council-owned properties. This will involve incorporating IoT systems in housing, focusing on properties with damp and mould issues, sheltered accommodation, large multiple-dwellings units, and void properties. The aim of the project is to find effective ways of using technology to monitor conditions in social housing, to get ahead of any potential issues and improve the response to damp and mould in homes. These projects are particularly exciting as I believe they can make a difference in the context of the cost-of-living crisis and rising energy costs; we are implementing exciting potential solutions that are relevant to the real issues people are facing today.

It’s been an exciting few months, and I can’t wait to see what next year at DG Cities brings. It’s a great team, and I’m looking forward to continuing to learn and develop alongside colleagues with such a breadth of experience. I’m also proud to be a part of a company that is putting the opinions and needs of service users at the heart of what they do, to advance the innovative, technology-led solutions that can make a real, positive difference to people’s lives.

What makes a self-driving vehicle feel safe? Understanding the nuances of attitudes to AI on the road

In a world where self-driven vehicles share the roads with vehicles driven by people, how do we define what is ‘safe’? And is it likely to be so different from the way we currently travel on the UK’s roads, one of the riskiest activities many of us do on a daily basis? DG Cities has been investigating the meaning of safety in the AI-driven future as part of project D-RISK. Head of Research, Ed Houghton shares some of our latest findings and analysis.

Photo: Dan Gold/Unsplash

Often the topic of science-fiction, self-driving has come a long way in a relatively short period. Many of the technologies we are using in cars today have some level of automation, such as automated braking systems, and forthcoming automated lane keeping systems (ALKS), both of which make some use of self-driving tech. But how can we know if these technologies are safe? And is it useful to compare their statistics with human driven vehicles? After all, not everyone on the road is safe.

This question of what constitutes safe is important. In order to advance safe self-driving vehicle technology, we need to develop a deeper understanding of how we define, measure, and experience safety on the roads. How we perceive safety will differ significantly from person to person. For example, an elderly person crossing a busy pelican crossing may feel it is unsafe, whilst a young-adult on an e-scooter may feel overly safe. Drivers also experience safety differently, as do their passengers, therefore it’s important we consider the individual nuances of what safety can mean.

D-Risk is a recently completed £3m programme led by drisk.ai alongside DG Cities, Claytex and Imperial College London – as a collective, we have been working towards building a driving test for self-driving technologies. We believe this is a vital piece of the puzzle towards building safer urban environments. But to do this, we needed to go back to basics to redefine what we mean by safe self-driving vehicles – and we did this by surveying the public.

We surveyed 651 members of the public, and ran six workshops across the UK to explore public attitudes to autonomous vehicle safety.

One major factor that influences our perception of safety is the environment we’re in, especially if it is unfamiliar. We asked survey respondents to describe their willingness to ride in a self-driving car in urban environment, compared to a rural one, at different times of day. We found that less than a fifth (17.6%) believe travelling in a self-driving vehicle in an urban environment, or in a rural environment (15.5%), at night would be safe. Daytime travel was rated slightly safer (urban: 24.7%, rural: 22.1%).

We also investigated views on new partial autonomy systems that take over specific tasks from the driver. Our data showed that ALKS (Automated Lane Keeping Systems) are viewed with some scepticism by the public, with only a quarter (25.2%) looking to use them in the future. Almost three fifths (59.3%) of those we surveyed would not use ALKS technologies if they were made available to them. Less than half (48.7%) do not believe that ALKS will improve road safety, whilst almost a quarter (24.6%) are yet to be convinced. 

As for what builds trust, we looked into assurance processes, such as annual software MOTs and independent software audits. Both were viewed positively by the public: there was broad agreement that the assurance processes outlined to participants would have positive impacts on perceptions of trust. The highest rated impacts were annual software MOTs (49.8% believed this would have a positive impact) and independent software audits (48.4%), illustrating the importance of assurance processes to the public.

Where to next for safe autonomy?

We found great interest in autonomy as a route to safer roads, but many we spoke to still felt there was not enough information or examples available to help overcome their concerns. This, we believe, is a vital step for those looking to deploy self-driving services – and we believe that self-driving tests, like the ones developed through D-RISK, have the potential to radically shift how people view, and trust, AI.

Read our latest report in full.

Is the transition to EVs at risk of stalling? Findings from the latest Research Community Survey

As we launch findings from our Research Community survey on attitudes to electric vehicles, Head of Research, Ed Houghton highlights the importance of understanding people’s barriers if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets. What can policymakers and industry do to help drive the transition? Who do our respondents expect to pay for new EV charging infrastructure? Read Ed’s analysis and download the full report below.

Daniel Andraski/Pexels

For the past week, all eyes have been on Sharm El-Sheikh, as world leaders met at COP27 to find a way forward against the urgency of climate change. While the conference looked across many sectors and their challenges, a vital area is transport and mobility - specifically, the transition away from polluting carbon fuels and towards zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The trend towards ZEVs and electric vehicles (EVs) has been increasing for several years – and with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the pressure to move away from carbon fuel has only grown.

The big news at COP27 was that the ZEVs are very much on the agenda. Delegates agreed to launch the Accelerating To Zero Coalition, billed as a “platform for leading initiatives to work together to deliver a Paris-aligned Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) transition globally.” This new coalition aims to build on COP26’s Zero Emission Vehicles Declaration, which plans to accelerate the transition to make all new cars and vans zero-emission by 2035 in leading markets, and 2040 globally, in line with Paris Agreement climate goals.

But while these goals are critical, the path to realising them is not clear. And given the current economic and energy climate, there is considerable uncertainty as to how realistic these objectives are, when public attitudes and perceptions towards ZEVs, and EVs in particular, are still limited by concerns that electric isn’t necessarily going to be better than petrol or diesel. This is why at DG Cities, we have been investigating public attitudes to and perceptions of electric vehicles to understand what can be done to accelerate the transition towards zero emissions.

Is the UK public ready for the EV transition?

To reach these, and the UK’s own aspirational targets, there will need to be a significant shift in purchasing behaviour over the coming decade. A shift is now possible, as technology has improved considerably: battery capacity has grown and EV chargers are more effective, easier to use, and offer improved user interfaces. These changes mean that in the UK alone, EV sales have increased 160% over two years and are continuing this upward trend.

The question, however, is whether this trend will be sustainable, particularly in the current climate. This is very much driven by public attitudes and behaviour – how the public views EVs, their interest towards them, and whether they see their value. At DG Cities, we wanted to understand the attitudes and behaviours behind the current trends - and from these, assess what could be done to further drive the transition.

In 2022 we surveyed more than 400 members of the public, in order to take a deeper look at their attitudes towards EVs. Our study showed that:

• One fifth (19%) of respondents are very likely to purchase an EV in the coming 12 months – however 50% are not intending to shift. This group needs support to transition, as it is unlikely that a fifth of vehicle owners transitioning is enough.

• The major barriers to EV adoption are cost, perceived lack of charging infrastructure, and range anxiety. These issues are in line with other studies, which highlight the persistent nature of range anxiety.

• Responsibility for installing chargers is split across different stakeholders, with three-fifths (60%) thinking that it should be the responsibility of energy companies, whilst just over half (54%) think that local authorities should be responsible. Few believed that EV owners should be responsible for installing EV chargers.

Read the full report

What can be done to drive the transition?

Our results highlight that there is still untapped demand for EVs, but many of the well known attitudinal and behavioural barriers to adoption persist. Policymakers and industry must therefore collaborate to look closer at the issues, and better understand the underlying drivers of behaviour. It is clear that policies and approaches have been successful in driving early adoption: the market is growing and more vehicles are entering the market. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if current approaches will continue to work in their current form with the significant mass of public who are interested, but are not yet ready to take the plunge.

Case study: an electrification strategy for a council fleet

As COP27 begins in Egypt, we’re taking a look at some of the steps local authorities can take to meet net zero targets. Transport accounts for around a third of carbon emissions, and decarbonising a council’s fleet is vital in reducing its impact, as well as improving air quality. For a deeper dive into some of our fleet electrification work in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, DG Cities’ Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Specialist, Ash Burton explains how we used depot, fleet and operational analysis to develop and cost scenarios for the transition to cleaner, greener council vehicles.

As part of the council’s wider carbon neutral aims, the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) has an ambition to convert its fleet to be fully electric in the coming years. RBG’s fleet consists of more than 500 vehicles, a proportion of which are currently electric. In order to sustain an all-electric fleet, RBG need to upgrade their electrical infrastructure at their two main depots and consider further installations across other areas of the borough. 

DG Cities worked alongside RBG to develop a business case for the transition. This sets out proposals, costs, a delivery plan and the risks and benefits for the electrification of their vehicle fleet. The study explored three different electrification scenarios to provide a range of cost options.

This included:

Scenario one: Main depots to support the whole electric fleet.

Scenario two: Main depots to support the fleet, but reliance on smart charging, charge time optimisation and battery storage to minimise overall capital investment required. Home agreement vehicles to be charging at home. Solar photovoltaics could also act as an additional technological solution to potentially supplement the final design.

Scenario three: Main depots to support the fleet as in scenario two, but with maximum reliance on off-site charging as well. 

Scenario evaluation

After discussions with the council’s fleet management team, we developed the details of the three scenarios. Scenario one would include a designated charger for each vehicle at the main depots. This would enable each vehicle to be charged whenever necessary without the need for scheduled charging. Operationally, this would work well, as drivers could plug in their vehicle at the end of each shift and there would be no worry regarding charging availability. However, it isn’t totally necessary for each vehicle to have its own charger, as most vehicles would not need to charge every day due to lower mileage. This means that vehicles could share chargers and have their own set days to charge. Also, this would be a lot cheaper for the council, as it would reduce their capital expenditure. This is why scenario two and three were developed. 

Scenario two and three would both include a scheduled approach to charging, which reduces the number of chargers required at the depot. Each service would have a dedicated number of chargers based on their fleet. The services would schedule their vehicles' charging patterns based on their planned daily and weekly usage. These two scenarios would also include the possibility of home charging for those vehicles within the fleet that have a home agreement. The drivers of these vehicles could potentially have charge points installed at their homes and charge their vehicles overnight, or drivers could use nearby public charge points. For scenario three, the possibility of further offsite charging was included for vehicles that make longer, more frequent stops at repeated locations. Scenario two and three would both require fewer chargers located at the depot and would effectively be less costly.

Understanding the fleet

One of the first steps of the process was to ensure that we fully understand the workings and demands of the entire vehicle fleet. We wanted to know how often vehicles went out each week, how many miles they were doing daily and what their typical pattern looked like. This involved an in depth analysis of the vehicles using a full fleet list, fuel consumption data and trip telematics provided by RBG. The fleet was analysed by service and vehicle type, and typical daily and weekly usage of each vehicle was determined. This allowed us to calculate how often each vehicle would need to charge throughout the week, whilst being able to carry out their usual weekly patterns. From this, we were able to work out how many chargers each service would need to maintain their fleet. For this piece of work, we wanted to propose that services have their own designated chargers as it would make it easier operationally for the fleet as each service would have their own set of chargers and can schedule when their vehicles should charge. This reduces the risk of over-booking chargers between services. 

We also wanted to work out how much it would cost RBG to replace their current vehicle fleet with electric vehicles. Currently, vehicles have a seven year replacement cycle within RBG. The full fleet included expected replacement years for each vehicle and, alongside this, a list of potential replacement vehicles was developed which identified possible electric alternatives to each vehicle type. We were able to estimate how much it would cost annually to gradually electrify the fleet as vehicles meet the end of their replacement cycle each year.

Understanding the depot

We also needed to understand the depot, this included how things currently operate, what electrical infrastructure is currently in place and what would have to change to support a fully electric fleet. Our subcontractor, UKPN Services, carried out electrical site surveys at the two main depots to establish current infrastructure and also drafted cost estimates and concept designs showing the locations of required equipment based on the three different electrification scenarios developed. UKPN Services also submitted a request to the distribution network operator (DNO) to provide a quote for electrical upgrade for each scenario. Ultimately, we were able to provide full estimates for capital and operational costs for each electrification scenario. This included electrical upgrade and infrastructure costs, vehicle replacement costs and full operational expenditure. 

Working with the council

Throughout the project, we worked closely with RBG’s fleet management team, using their expertise and understanding of the fleet and depot to ensure our proposals align with their aims. During the project, we also met with managers of the largest services within the fleet. We discussed the typical running pattern of their vehicles, what their schedule entails and any causes of concern when it comes to electrification. We also spoke about what each electrification scenario would mean for the service. For example, scenario two and three could involve vehicles in some services to charge at home or offsite - we discussed how this would work and how it would benefit the council. At major milestones throughout the project, we arranged workshops with relevant wider RBG colleagues to share project progress and discuss any thoughts or concerns regarding the proposals. 

Electrifying the vehicle fleet will bring the council a step closer to carbon neutrality. The process of electrification will be gradual, and will get easier in years to come as better technologies and more infrastructure become available. This project has made it clear that this is not a ‘one solution fixes all’ issue, it will take several solutions to play their part in the transition to electric. 

To find out more about our fleet electrification projects, watch our film with Nottingham City Council, or get in touch to find out how we can help.

That was #nudgemonth!

We have really enjoyed shining a spotlight on behavioural science at DG Cities this month, and showcasing some of the potential benefits of a technology + behaviour change approach when it comes to improving people’s lives. Here’s a quick recap of some of our highlights.

We began October with a look at the fundamentals of a behaviour change intervention, starting by understanding cognitive bias and where the opportunities to challenge different steps in our decision-making processes might lie. This raised the important question of ethics, which Isobel Madle discussed in her blog. She highlighted the value of working in close collaboration with the people a project is intended to benefit: ensuring that any programme is done ‘with’ and not ‘to’ communities, and balancing research from a literature review, which may not relate to the issues and attitudes of a particular group, with direct experience.

Watching eyes imagery on the Barnfield Estate in Greenwich

In week two, Ed Houghton introduced the DG Cities team and approach, and shared five ways that local authorities can make the most of technology + behaviour change programmes. We drew on our fly-tipping project in Greenwich as a case study for a holistic IoT tech and behaviour change initiative. Throughout the month, we have also been sharing projects and case studies that we like: 2-minute litter picks on Norfolk beaches, using AI to support safer school streets, a film of one man’s attempts to outsmart his smart health device, examples of watching eyes imagery to deter theft, vandalism or fly-tipping and pictures of babies designed to encourage more caring behaviour.

In week three, we were delighted to have two very special guest pieces: an interview with leading behavioural scientist and developer of Nudge+ theory, Sanchayan Banerjee, and a blog by Sam Nutt of the London Office of Technology and Innovation on some of the great work London councils are doing to include residents in the decision-making process for even the most technical data policy. We explored some of the opportunities to positively influence travel behaviours, and for this, our economist, Leanne Kelly explained some of the circumstances that can be conducive to encouraging change. On the theme of mobility, we drew on the insight we gained through our extensive public engagement around attitudes to autonomous vehicles to highlight our recommendation for behavioural change intervention to address the significant percentage that are not against self-driving cars, but are yet to be persuaded.

Finally, last week, Leanne looked at how to make change stick. We revisited a piece by Sarah Simpkin, who did the car-free challenge back in July, to see what the longer-term impact of that month had been. And as we got closer to Halloween, we peered into what can happen when nudge goes wrong. For this, Isobel explained the need to guard against phenomena like ‘spillover effect’, where people can feel that, because they’ve done something ‘good’, they can then do something ‘bad’ to compensate, which ultimately results in zero behavioural impact. A cautionary tale, which reinforces the value of our people-centred approach.

Comms team take a well-earned rest

Thanks to our fantastic collaborators, our behaviour change team at DG Cities and you, for joining us. If you’re interested in any of the themes or projects we’ve raised, we’d love you to get in touch. And keep an eye on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages for more insights into our work this autumn, as we look at electrification, autonomous vehicles and carbon audits.

When nudge goes wrong: what can happen when the best intentions don’t lead to the ideal outcome

For our last #nudgemonth feature, as Halloween approaches, our Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle takes a look at the scarier side of behaviour change: what happens when nudges go wrong, the unintended consequences of the best laid plans and our natural resistance to any sense that choices are being made for us. These cautionary tales illustrate how any behavioural intervention must be carefully calibrated, based on evidence, research, close engagement and a deep understanding of the context.

As DG Cities’ nudge month is in its last week, it feels like an important time to highlight what happens when ‘nudge’ and other behavioural science techniques produce unintended consequences; what that means for practitioners and how we can protect against it in the future.

In general, behaviour change interventions identify one target behaviour to increase or reduce, for example, reducing car use or increasing the number of people walking to work. For us, this might also be helping to ensure the successful adoption of a new technology that can improve people’s lives. However, as behavioural science has become more popular, it has become evident that we need to consider how this behaviour change impacts on other behaviours. People do not perform single behaviours in a vacuum; they are inter-related and influenced by their context, so it makes sense that attempting to change a single behaviour might have an unintended impact on another. Below are a few unintended consequences of behaviour change interventions:

Positive or negative ‘spillover’ effects

A positive spillover effect occurs when the adoption of one behaviour causes the adoption of other behaviours. For example, a behavioural change programme might use nudges to reduce the amount of people who use their cars to commute to work. A positive spillover from this intervention could be that people also reduce their car use for leisure journeys. From a policy perspective, investigating the possibility of positive spillover effects is really attractive, because it could suggest that we can change several behaviours in a cost-effective way with little regulation.

On the other hand, a negative spillover effect occurs where performing one behaviour reduces the likelihood of performing another. For example, a person might decide that because they went for a run that day, they can have McDonalds for dinner. Another example of this can be found in energy reduction behaviours, whereby people feel that, because they’ve done something ‘good’, they can then do something ‘bad’ to compensate - this ultimately results in zero behavioural impact. Lucas Davis [1] found that consumers who bought energy-efficient products increased their energy use to the extent that they offset any potential energy reductions. For example, in the US, consumers who bought energy efficiency washing machines increased their clothes washing by 5%, so offset any potential energy savings.

Negative reactance to nudges

Occasionally, nudges can cause reactance in consumers. For example, ‘choice defaults’ are commonly used nudges that promote pro-social behaviour change. One example of this could be making environmentally-friendly energy contracts the default option on energy websites, in order to increase their overall uptake [2]. However, this can backfire and consumers may feel that they want to exert their autonomy and choose a different option.

Boomerang effect

Another effect is that receiving feedback on their behaviour can cause consumers to alter their behaviour in the wrong way. For example, often energy companies provide consumers with feedback on their energy consumption habits compared to their neighbours, known as social norms. Those with higher consumption can often be prompted to lower their energy consumption as a result. However, those with already low consumption see that others have higher consumption and can ‘boomerang’ [3]. In other words, they use the opportunity to increase their consumption to match their peers.

There is a clear need to study these holistic effects of behaviour change interventions. As we may nudge an individual in one domain, we could be ‘un-nudging’ them in another. This is why at DG Cities, we often use system dynamics techniques to map out systems of behaviours and influences prior to designing the intervention. From this, we can identify how our intervention will have an impact on the entire behavioural system, rather than just the single behaviour to be changed. However, this comes with its own complexities of system development and design, and we are investigating how we can design interventions that take into consideration these complexities of behaviour and context.

We are always learning, from project experience and academic research; our approach to behaviour change is guided by the people we are trying to benefit, based on the understanding we gain through engagement with them. If you would like to find out more about any of the projects or themes raised in nudge month, get in touch.

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[1] Lucas Davis, (2008) Durable Goods and Residential Demand for Energy and Water: Evidence from a Field Trial https://www.jstor.org/stable/25474381

[2] Ebeling, F., and Lotz, S. (2015). Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs. Nat. Climate Change 5, 868–871. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2681

[3] Bhanot, S. P. (2017): “Rank and Response: A Field Experiment on Peer Information and Water Use Behavior,”