Live Labs 2 event will update progress of road decarbonisation projects

The Live Lab 2 project led by South Gloucestershire and West Sussex Councils is creating Greenprint, a carbon-negative systems model for green infrastructure management. It aims to reduce operational emissions and revolutionise the narrative for biomass drawn from councils’ estates from ‘waste’ to ‘value’.

Transport Progress in the ADEPT/ DfT £30m three-year Live Labs 2 programme, trialling new ways to accelerate the decarbonisation of local highways infrastructure and assets, will be explored at an event in Birmingham in April. The projects are all addressing the embodied and hidden carbon in the local roads’ ecosystem and life cycle from specification and procurement, through construction, delivery, operation and maintenance to decommissioning and reinstatement.

Live Labs 2 has four interconnected themes: Corridor and place-based decarbonisation; creating a UK Centre of excellence for materials; A green carbon laboratory; and a future lighting testbed. Seven local authorities are leading the Live Labs 2 projects, in partnership with the highways industry and academia. North Lanarkshire Council and Transport for West Midlands are lead authorities for the UK Centre of excellence for materials; Wessex Partnership (Somerset Council, Cornwall Council, Hampshire CC), Devon CC, and Liverpool City Council are leading on the Corridor and place-based decarbonisation; South Gloucestershire Council & West Sussex CC lead on the green carbon laboratory; and East Riding of Yorkshire Council are leading the future lighting testbed.

The event will bring together the project teams, their commercial partners, the Commissioning Board and local authority and industry representatives. They will consider the insights from Live Labs 2 so far, and explore further collaboration between public and private sector partners in order to embed local road decarbonisation into UK practice.

Live Labs 2 is funded by the Department for Transport and managed by ADEPT. It began last year and will run until March 2026, acting as an incubator for proving concepts and developing new solutions over the course of an initial three years of development, followed by a five-year monitoring period.

The programme is overseen by a commissioning board whose members include Colas, Construction LCA, County Surveyors’ Society Wales, Department for Infrastructure Northern Ireland, DfT, EY, Innovate UK, Kent County Council, Kier, Leicestershire CC, Open Data Institute, Ringway, SNC-Lavalin’s Atkins business, the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, Transport for London and WSP. Taking place at the Birmingham

Conference and Exhibition Centre on 17 April, Live Labs 2 Expo 2024 will demonstrate the innovation, services and technologies currently in development and set out priorities for the years ahead.

For further information or to attend or exhibit see https://www.adeptlivelabs.org.uk/