Supporting Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Maintenance (Research In the Wild)

Lead Research Organisation: Lancaster University
Department Name: Computing & Communications

Abstract

Helping to address the sustainability agenda through informed personal travel has been an area of intense research activity with many new forms of information collection and dissemination having been investigated. Much less well studied is the problem of maintaining the transport infrastructure in a sustainable fashion. In our work we wish to explore in the wild how new developments in travel information gathering and dissemination can be used to drive more sustainable approaches to maintaining the UK's transport infrastructure. The project builds on successful collaborations established through funded research projects (Our Travel (TSB), Faith (TSB/EPSRC), Smart Streets (TSB)) and looks to test in the wild ideas emerging from new areas of academic research as typified by the RCUK funded Sixth Sense Transport project.

Our work builds on two recent research projects, i.e. Our Travel and Sixth Sense. Within the Our Travel project the consortium have shown how crowd-sourced transport information can be integrated with highways maintenance activities to help better coordinate work activities and to ensure timely dissemination of information regarding maintenance activities to travellers. The on-going Sixth Sense Transport project is a multidisciplinary academic research project involving the Universities of Southampton (transport), Edinburgh (design), Salford (psychology) and Bournemouth (tourism) that is looking to encourage travellers to adopt a more sustainable approach to travel. To this end the project is developing applications that allow travellers to see predictions of future travel patterns of other users, enabling them to avoid congestion and make more opportunistic use of travel links, particularly across transport modes and between travellers. For example, the project looks to encourage travellers to identify opportunities for shared travel, convert single-purpose trips into multi-purpose trips, engage in collaborative logistics and shift to mixed-mode transport by providing simple interactive maps that show traces of both past and future travel patterns.

Our interest is in exploring whether the idea of using such predictive travel patterns can help provide a more sustainable approach to maintaining the UK's transport infrastructure. At present many highways maintenance activities are driven largely by a need to comply with contractual KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This tends to lead to an inherently unsustainable "earliest deadline first" approach to scheduling that significantly increases the environmental overhead associated with highways maintenance. Prediction of future travel patterns may help in two distinct ways. Firstly, by enabling highways maintenance engineers to predict future travel patterns they can schedule work in a way that minimises traffic disruption - particularly with respect to journeys that involve multiple transport modes (e.g. driving to the station to catch a train). This can lead to a significant reduction in congestion and associated emissions. Secondly, by predicting future travel patterns of their own maintenance vehicles highways maintenance engineers can maximise the potential for opportunistic improvements to work-flows. For example, it may be possible to identify opportunities for maintenance operatives to opportunistically share tools and materials such as tarmac without the need to return to base between road repairs - reducing transport costs and environmental impact. More generally, in this research we are looking to enable a shift from a reactive, and distinctly inefficient and environmentally costly model of scheduling to a predictive, opportunistic model that looks to minimise the environmental impact of work.

Planned Impact

Our proposal is for a collaborative project involving Lancaster University, In Touch Ltd. and Carillion plc. The project is designed to test ideas emerging from funded RCUK research by Lancaster University in the context of real world environments provided by In Touch Ltd. and Carillion plc. The project is designed to provide a mix of readily exploitable results with clear commercial pathways to impact and more highly speculative, high-risk, high-payoff work items that have the potential to transform activities in the area of infrastructure maintenance.

If the project is successful and demonstrates that through the use of new technologies highways maintenance activities can conducted in a more sustainable manner then the impact on both the industry sector and the country as a whole could be extremely significant. In particular, the project has the potential to deliver significant economic and environmental savings by reducing congestion caused by roadworks and by enabling contractors to carry out the work more efficiently.

Through the involvement of potential users of our research results, both in the form of a company that could directly exploit the work and a major end-user of a resulting software system we have a direct pathway to market for our work. Equally importantly, these partners provide us with a ready vehicle for ensuring the impact of our work is visible within the broader market sector. In particular, we note that the bid-oriented nature of the highways sector provides the potential for rapid uptake of new developments on a national scale.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description In this project we have developed a new data hub that can be used by transport maintenance companies to help predict future maintenance requirements and coordinate their maintenance activities through improved support for decision making.

Building on our new data hub we have created a number of decision support applications that are in use on a major maintenance contract.
Exploitation Route Our work can be adopted by software companies developing systems to support a wide range of infrastructure maintenance activities. The theoretical work can also be used by councils and contractors to improve efficiency of existing contracts and to improve global competitiveness.
Sectors Construction

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Government

Democracy and Justice

Transport

 
Description This research is currently in progress. To date our research has been used to help inform the development of new highways maintenance systems by an SME and to stimulate discussions of new working practices by a local authority and a major contractor.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Construction,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport
 
Description Data-driven Precision Surface Water Management for Urban Environments
Amount £727,981 (GBP)
Funding ID 102353 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2015 
End 11/2016
 
Description Freight Traffic Control 2050: transforming the energy demands of last-mile urban freight through collaborative logistics
Amount £1,160,675 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/N02222X/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2016 
End 04/2019
 
Description PETRAS: Cybersecurity of the Internet of Things
Amount £4,559,841 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/N02334X/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2016 
End 02/2019
 
Description Smart Clean
Amount £156,916 (GBP)
Funding ID 131556 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2014 
End 03/2015
 
Description Smart Integrated Transport Infrastructure Maintenance (SITI-M)
Amount £5,600 (GBP)
Funding ID 131585 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2014 
End 04/2014
 
Description TrackWater: Supporting High-Value, Low-Cost Rail Network Drainage Asset Management
Amount £636,078 (GBP)
Funding ID 103957 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 09/2018
 
Title Gully state dataset 
Description The gully dataset is a collection of historic and real-time records collected manually that describe the periodic state of a street gully (i.e. drainage) silt levels. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2012 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact - Follow on funding for research of a transport IoT data hub (Smart Streets) - Inclusion of the gully dataset through the Smart Streets hub - Development of a innovative real-time gully sensor network to sample silt levels - Follow on funding to develop decision-support applications (Supporting Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Maintenance 'In-the-wild' CSA7944) that leverage the gully dataset to generate predictive analytics for contractors (Carillion/InTouch) 
URL http://6st.lancs.ac.uk/
 
Description Consortium Partner (Balfour Beatty) 
Organisation Balfour Beatty
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Research and development of innovative digital technologies to support intelligent transport infrastructure surface water management and understanding of trust issues around the IoT .
Collaborator Contribution Domain expertise in the management of highways infrastructure surface water, and specifically the maintenance of road-side gully networks in the UK. Furthermore, Baflour have provided research teams access to real user systems and processes to evaluate and trial novel ideas and applications.
Impact Organisational change in the maintenance of highways infrastructure through the deployment of new decision-support tools and IoT hub technology.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Consortium partner (Carillion) 
Organisation Carillion
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Research and development of future digital technologies to support sustainable highways infrastructure maintenance and enhance trusted relationships between key stakeholders and adoption of IoT hub technologies.
Collaborator Contribution Domain specific knowledge related to highways maintenance and access to real user systems and processes to evaluate novel ideas and applications.
Impact Changes in highways maintenance working practice and strategic decision-making through the deployment of innovative products and services
Start Year 2011
 
Description Consortium partner (In Touch) 
Organisation In Touch Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Through our understanding and development of novel trust models in the context of highways maintenance we have transferred expert knowledge to help inform In Touch Ltd products and services developed to enhance levels of trust in the highways sector. Specifically, we have shown In Touch Ltd how to utilise several requirements analysis methods that include the use of ethnographic study, innovation workshops and user-centred design approaches. More generally, In Touch Ltd has benefitted from our innovation processes, software development skills (e.g. rapid prototyping), communication plans, technical management and knowledge transfer support through student placements.
Collaborator Contribution We have benefitted from domain specific knowledge from In Touch Ltd and access to real user systems and processes to evaluate novel ideas and applications.
Impact Innovative digital technologies to support highways maintenance activities.
Start Year 2012
 
Description In-field system trials partner (Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council) 
Organisation Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Expertise in the research and development of digital mobile technologies to support trusted relationships between the Council, constituents and 3rd party contractors employed to deliver highways maintenance services.
Collaborator Contribution Domain specific knowledge from project partners and access to real user systems and processes to evaluate novel ideas and applications.
Impact Improved communications between the council, public members and contractors.
Start Year 2011
 
Description Transport Research Funding (HE) 
Organisation Department of Transport
Department Highways Agency
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution A series of research proposals to identify potential areas for collaboration with the HE to explore novel digital technologies to support more efficient approaches to highways maintenance.
Collaborator Contribution Understanding of the problem domain around future highways infrastructure maintenance challenges, and guidance on the availability of research funding opportunities within the HE.
Impact Joint collaboration in shaping ideas for new proposals.
Start Year 2015
 
Title Chrono Hub 
Description The Chrono Hub represents an open web platform that aims to support applications that require capabilities to predict the future state of transportation 'entities and artifacts' based on historic and real-time information (e.g. GPS traces, gully silt levels). Existing state-of-the-art IoT transport data hubs primarily focus on managing large datasets of historic and real-time information. For 3rd party application developers that wish to support prediction capabilities in their applications, developing bespoke prediction algorithms can be a non-trivial and time intensive process. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact
 
Title Gully web visualisation 
Description Intelligent gully monitoring provides a real-time representation of the state of gully networks. Utilising historic gully state and weather data, as well as current gully silt levels and weather forecast, the web visualisation prototype models flood risk of a network of gullies to support gully cleansing decision-making. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact - Trialled with Carillion management personnel in Redcar - Included as a example innovation case study in Carillion's bid process for the Redcar highways maintenance contract 
 
Title Resource Share 
Description The 'in-the-wild' highways maintenance resourcing sharing prototype aims to support remote workers with new capabilities to coordinate and share resources such as machinery, tools and consumables (e.g. sand and tarmac) in-the field. Through an in-vehicle application, daily mobility patterns of maintenance vehicles are analysed to identify and suggest future opportunities for crews to coordinate and exchange resources. Primarily a mobile decision-support tool for crews, the application aims to facilitate greater operational sustainability of resource procurement in-situ, and encourage behaviour change from a reactive isolated model of managing resources, to a open informed approach that minimises the environmental and economic impact of performing work by reducing the travel required to resource work in the field. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact Trialled in Redcar with highways maintenance operatives 
 
Description Flood Expo 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Supported InTouch Ltd in managing a stall promoting InTouch's SmartWater solutions including a innovative gully management system to key surface water management practitioners in the public and private sector.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Redcar Community Engagement 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Held several user trials with local residents in Redcar exposed to new technologies to enhance levels of civic engagement with Redcar Council. The studies provided an extensive collection of quantitative and qualitative data used to inform the design of future civic engagement applications and gain a deeper understanding of trust in the context of highways maintenance.

Increased awareness of Council infrastructure maintenance activities
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012,2013,2014
 
Description SmartClean Industry Exploitation at the Northern Robotics Network (NRN) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The primary aim was to demonstrate outputs from the Smart Clean feasibility study, showcasing decision-support products to experts in academia and industry.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Transport For London Research Forum 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Transport related research outputs were presented at the 1st Research Forum organised by Transport For London on 11th Sept 2015. The event was designed to build research collaborations. This helped strengthen relationships with TfL and we have since submitted a joint research project to InnovateUK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Transport Projects Talk at CITI 2013 (Mexico) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Much debate about transport habits and behaviour change

further requests for information about the projects
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013