Those of you who read our 2019 review will have picked up on the fact that for the past 18 months, the Smart Mobility Living Lab has been a major undertaking for Team DG Cities.  But what exactly has our role in this ambitious project been? Well today, we’re going to share our SMLL story so far…

As DG Cities, we have undertaken a number of exciting trials with self-driving vehicles, helping to establish the Royal Borough of Greenwich as a leading light in the smart mobility space.  But SMLL is a different proposition; here we aren’t so much testing technology as creating a real-world, urban testbed for exploring all aspects of the future of mobility. A huge undertaking and one where we have brought our experience to bear as well as gaining hugely valuable insights along the way.

Defining the Smart Mobility Living Lab

Undertaking an infrastructure project of this scale requires significant planning and more importantly, clear definition of what we wanted the testbed to be.  All the SMLL partners came together during this critical early stages of the project, with DG Cities facilitating many workshops and discussions around this in our offices.  Painstaking work but vital and we can clearly see now that we have shaped the way the testbed is now coming together, especially when looking at the mobility service testing elements.

Remembering the Connectivity in CAVs

It’s all too easy to get seduced by the autonomous part of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, but arguably, the connected element is more important and will definitely happen sooner.  Even today, many of the new vehicles on the roads already have built-in SIM cards, allowing the vehicles to download maps and send updates of their status. Looking into the future, once vehicles and surrounding roadside infrastructure are connected to the Internet (and to each other) it is easy to imagine how it will revolutionise journeys. 

Digital connectivity is a core part of our service offering at DG Cities, so it was natural for us to take the lead on SMLL’s connectivity requirements.  Our work here consisted of delivering a private fibre network to support the SMLL infrastructure, connecting roadside cabinets and lamp columns with the back-office data centre. 

Through this we have gained invaluable insights and experience into the capabilities of different connectivity options in a city setting, and small but valuable real-world learnings around how to manage ownership questions or buildings being constructed over fibre ducts.  This really reflects our overall approach at DG Cities; our team encompasses strategic thinkers and practical doers, meaning that we aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty with the delivery of specific projects but will always think about how those deliverables fit into the wider workings of a city.

We have also led the work to define the requirements and potential implementation options for 5G delivery within the testbed, working with our partners to bring an exciting solution to support not only vehicle testing but, in the long term, the Borough as well.

We’ll be sharing more detailed insights into the reality of building networks in cities, in a future blog post.

An HQ that’s more than just a home for SMLL

We’ve talked before about our excitement in securing an HQ for SMLL in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, but behind the scenes a huge amount of work has gone into getting us to this point.  From defining requirements to undertaking searches for suitable properties, negotiating contracts and working with architects to design a space that captures all the requirements. The HQ will be the physical heart of SMLL, providing control rooms, a data centre, research facilities and exhibition and demo spaces.  

We selected a property that not only had the physical space and access for vehicles required but that also provided excellent transport links with existing DLR, Network Rail and Riverboat services, as well as future Crossrail services.  Consideration was given to the profile of the testbed and the ease in which national and international delegations could be brought to the testbed, as well as collaborators, customers and sponsors. Similarly, the location provides SMLL customers with access to London’s key assets and sectors; finance and insurance, media, national and city government, digital and creative.

This is another great example of our “whole-city” approach; it’s not enough to just find a space with room for data racks or secure parking of the SMLL AV.  Instead, we have found a location that provides much greater benefits not just to the project but to the area as a whole. In this way, we hope that the HQ will be an asset to Greenwich, providing a central hub for external investment and contribute to the ongoing economic regeneration of the area.  The specifics of establishing an HQ may be unique to this project, but we have developed an expertise that can be applied to any other town or city considering the rollout of new technologies and how to harness them to open up opportunities for job creation and economic growth.

Shared Research Programme

Our involvement in SMLL has not just been in the building of the testbed itself, but also in helping innovative organisations who have joined the Shared Research Programme (SRP), to start testing and finding answers to the big questions around the future of mobility.

We have also been commissioned by SMLL Ltd to undertake trials for the SRP members, alongside TRL.  This has seen us undertake the first monitored on-road CAV trial in London, using an open-architecture vehicle.  Towards the end of last year, we were also able to undertake passenger trials, making SMLL the first testbed in the UK to carry passengers on public roads.  Through this work, the SRP members, all innovators in their fields, are looking to find answers to the big questions around smart mobility and help to shape the future of transport.  

The Road Ahead

And of course the most exciting part of the story is still to come, as we enter the final few months of the project and the realisation of all that hard work: the launch of the most advanced connected urban testbed for smart mobility, based here in London.  Because let’s face it, if you can make self-driving vehicles work in London, you can make them work anyway.

If you’re thinking about how to deploy self-driving cars in your town or city and are looking for help, we’d love to hear from you.  Whether it’s undertaking connectivity rollouts, understanding the way the general public interacts with driverless vehicles or considering how to use this exciting tech to fulfill your broader strategic goals, our team can help.