Arup has won a £330,000 five-year contract to provide monitoring and evaluation services for the £30m Live Labs 2 programme.
Funded by the Department for Transport, and developed by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT), Live Labs 2 runs for three years until March 2026.
The monitoring and evaluation of the individual schemes however will continue until 2028 and assess the longer-term impacts of each innovation across Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Live Labs 2 'is unique in its focus on reducing the Scope 2 and 3 [carbon] emissions of transport projects that are indirect or in the control of suppliers and related services', ADEPT said.
Each Live Lab - and the programme as a whole - will undergo three types of evaluation:
- an impact evaluation to measure outcomes and determine whether Live Labs have delivered their objectives and the extent to which their approach can be successfully scaled up. It will also measure the success of the Live Labs 2 programme in achieving a move towards decarbonisation across the roads sector
- a process evaluation to examine how the Live Labs operated, what helped and hindered them in achieving their aims and how effective the model was in supporting the adoption of innovation in the roads sector
- a value for money evaluation to assess the costs and benefits of each Live Lab and whether they present an effective use of resources.
ADEPT president Anthony Payne said: 'One of the key aims of Live Labs 2 is to share knowledge with the highways and transportation sector across the UK and internationally, and to inform wider government policy. With its focus on local authority-led innovation trialled with partners across the private sector and academia, the programme will deliver on the ground learning and business cases that can be adopted universally.
'Providing vigorous monitoring and evaluation throughout the lifetime of the programme and beyond will ensure that the data and learning we share will be invaluable. We are pleased to welcome Arup to the Live Labs 2 team.'
Arup has evaluated UK projects and policies such as the Elizabeth Line and the Freeports programme.
Matthew Dillon, global economics skills leader at Arup said: 'This is a long evaluation, over five years, with seven projects over three workstreams, and a wide geographical area, and lots of lessons to be learned by the sector. With our partners NatCen, we are raring to go.'
Live Labs 2 has just begun its deployment phase with seven projects working to four inter-connected themes across the UK:
- a UK centre of excellence for materials – North Lanarkshire Council and Transport for West Midlands.
- corridor and place-based decarbonisation – Wessex partnership (Somerset County Council, Cornwall Council and Hampshire County Council), Devon County Council, and Liverpool City Council.
- a green carbon laboratory – South Gloucestershire Council & West Sussex County Council.
- a future lighting testbed – East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
The Live Labs initiatives are part of ADEPT’s SMART Places programme to support innovation and technology in place-based services.
