Who is the survey aimed at?


Who is the survey aimed at?

This survey is aimed at individuals working in local government or place-based organisations who are responsible for the design, procurement and management of the UK’s connected places.

Such organisations may include:

  • Regional and local authorities in the UK
  • Transport authorities and operators (for example: rail, aviation, ports/maritime, roads and bus operators)
  • Health and social care providers
  • Smart utilities providers (for example: waste, water)
  • Property and building management companies
  • Universities / smart campuses
  • Sports and cultural venues

A range of individuals may be involved in the design, build and operation of connected places within your organisation. You may therefore submit a single (coordinated) response on behalf of your organisation; or a response on behalf of your specific department/function, as appropriate. The survey asks you which of these is the case.

The following is intended to be a non-exhaustive illustration of the types of individuals that we would welcome responses from:

  • Connected places (or smart city) or innovation project and strategy leads and officials
  • Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)
  • Head of IT departments / relevant IT personnel
  • Cyber security architects and engineers
  • Commercial and procurement leads and officials
  • All other personnel involved in running the day-to-day operations of connected places infrastructure.

Examples of connected place activities in the private sector:

Universities/Smart Campus – examples:

  • Students can be digitally connected to educational materials, each other, and their teachers
  • Campus environmental monitoring
  • Building efficiency monitoring
  • Student experience optimisation
  • optimising space utilisation

Smart Utilities – examples:

  • Smart meters – allow individuals and the national grid to monitor power consumption
  • Incentives such as price reductions at of peak times can be used to smooth supplies. Can be used to smooth demand for energy
  • Next generation energy transmission and distribution networks can automatically monitor energy flows and adjust to changes in supply and demand accordingly
  • include leakage and pollution detection and predictive maintenance planning. Cost savings and greener as reduces waste

Property management/urban planning – examples:

  • Use of just in time waste collection, using sensors fitted in the waste bins. Avoids congestion, energy efficient
  • A move to circular waste management, more recycling, identifying waste for energy. Big benefit in the move to net zero
  • Sensors measuring occupancy rates can control the lighting and ventilation systems in the building
  • Smart buildings can reduce power consumption when the grid tells them demand is high

Transport/Connected vehicles – examples:

  • Drivers can identify free parking spaces, eases congestion in cities.
  • Rolling stock tracking (rail)
  • Predictive maintenance
  • Mobility as a service, e.g. journey planning and accessible travel
  • Bottlenecks for traffic can identified and routing applied to journeys to avoid major congestion
  • Can be used to avoid accidents as interaction can between other vehicles, people, and infrastructure

Health and Social Care – examples:

  • Monitoring the elderly or vulnerable with wearable or at home monitoring tech (at home/post operations)
  • Automated pollutions sensors that can be tied into central computing systems
  • Rooms in hospitals can be optimally heated, cooled, and air-conditioned

Sports/Culture – examples:

  • Footfall data collated to smooth demand for planning and scheduling
  • Scheduling of events at clean environment venues and the managing of sports tourism
  • Some ticketing data
  • Parking or traffic monitoring sensors