The head of advanced connectivity technologies at the Department for Transport (DfT) has told the ITS sector that digital connectivity policy and funding updates to the Government's 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy could be made next year, following a cost-benefit review.
For the last six months, Dr Michaela Nelson has been assessing the digital connectivity requirements of the UK's transport network and she is now moving into a cost-benefit analysis phase, which will involve feedback from industry.
Dr Nelson said: ‘We're thinking about what the outcomes and impacts are so that we can look at the benefits that that leverages on the transport network. As we move into this cost-benefit analysis period, we really want to stack as many benefits as possible together to make a really clear case for Treasury [and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology] that improving digital connectivity on the transport network makes financial sense.
‘One of the things that we did back in August was to develop some scenarios to help us kind of test our policy and help us test the cost and benefits analysis that we're going to be doing. And we can expect that this work across transport, water, and energy will lead to an update to the 10-year infrastructure strategy next year, and hopefully some promise of funding as well.'
The scenarios start at ‘postcode patchwork' – a ‘do nothing' approach without government intervention, where digital connectivity will continue to develop ‘but you'll probably see more of that in urban areas', Dr Nelson said.
Then there is the ‘thin blanket' scenario of digital connectivity across the whole country but not high bandwidth, followed by the ‘breakneck high tech' scenario of high investment, high ambition.
Dr Nelson added that the Government would be taking a lead on digital connectivity because 'we don't think the mobile network operators will do it - [or do exactly what they] want without some government direction on this'.
While she didn't state it explicitly, in outlining the current digital connectivity across the transport network at a speech at the Transport Technology Forum (TTF), Dr Nelson gave some idea as to why the private sector might be reluctant.
She said: ‘It is a really complex system. It's fragmented, it's highly modal. We've got some legacy systems in there that need to be migrated away from. Essentially, if you can think of a telecoms technology, it's probably in use somewhere on the transport network. We're using all of the Gs, two, three, four, and five G are all at play. We've got some 5G standalone being built as well.
‘Copper, fibre, we've got non-terrestrial in all of the different orbits. We use a licensed spectrum, we have harmonised spectrum, we've got private networks. It's a really complex system as it is, and going forward it's likely to only get more complex.'
The Government's infrastructure strategy committed to look at the telecommunication requirements of individual sectors, including energy, water, and transport.
The strategy also contained a commitment by the Government to use procurement to help support digital connectivity across the UK for UK infrastructure.
