A smart system living lab

Automotive sector designers and marketers have historically worked with potential users, suppliers or customers such as using focus groups, to gather and experiment with ideas. But an extension of this general concept called a ‘living lab’ has evolved that may challenge traditional approaches to innovation management.

Originally applied in the USA to investigate the practicalities of utilising ‘smart’ technology in the home, the concept has been applied more broadly in Europe over the last 20 years to help deal with complex technology uptake and societal problems like those associated with the pursuit of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

A traditional lab provides a safe place for experimentation with and validation of technological and/or biological science ideas using ethical and controlled practices.

A ‘living lab’ follows a comparable practice by empowering participants from diverse backgrounds to work with combinations of ideas from the technological and social sciences. This can be challenging as it brings together people with different world views and different kinds of expertise in real-world settings. People from a community where a technology might be applied interact with business, government and academic participants at different times to both experiment with and validate ideas and new products or services.

While some established collaborative practices may deliver comparable outcomes, experience to date suggests that a living lab approach in the development phase may identify unexpected outcomes and may speed acceptance in the deployment phase. In addition, transdisciplinary knowledge, new connections made, and enhanced participant capabilities can provide a better foundation for a future round of innovative action.

Within the transport sector, living labs have been established to either provide a place with infrastructure for real-world experimentation and testing or to deal with the practicalities of wide-spread adoption of complex systems such as autonomous vehicles or fully electrified vehicle operations. Some examples follow.

The Italian city of Modena is building on local infrastructure (multiple test circuits) and its automotive heritage (the home of Ferrari) to provide testing, test management and data collection services in assessing the performance of new technology vehicles.

In the Karlsruhe region of Germany, the FZI has created a new type of research environment – a “House of Living Labs” building on local IT expertise. One of the living labs hosted is focused on smart future mobility concepts and another on intelligent systems in an industrial context.

A number of transport sectors are exploring the practicalities of living with smart autonomous vehicles systems for personal transport or for handling physical goods. In the Dutch province of Zeeland, a living lab is working with logistics companies to experiment with autonomous vehicles with mixed traffic in real-life logistic operations and on public roads.

A London (UK) Smart Mobility Living Lab is trialling an autonomous local taxi service supported by live CCTV and sensors at the roadside for collection and analysis of data, and to provide and evaluate vehicle-to-infrastructure communications in real-world conditions.

A Slovenian Autonomous Vehicle Living

Lab is managing a globally unique, live learning environment, which is full of everyday interactions, all within the BTC City Ljubljana area.

The use of autonomous vehicles is well established in some rail sector applications. Examples are in mining transport operations and an autonomous underground rail line in the city of Turin, Italy. The Finnish city of Tampere living lab provides an example of extending this into public spaces as a light rail service.

The substitution of electric powered engines for fossil fuel powered engines has implications for ready access to renewable energy capacity and refuelling infrastructure, and living labs are being used to help confront emergent issues.

An RMIT-led electric vehicle living lab is investigating multiple implementation issues in conjunction Monash and La Trobe universities and industry partners Siemens, City of Melbourne, Centre for New Energy Technologies (C4NET) and CitiPower/Powercor.

A Monash University Zero Emission Bus Living Lab is partnering with ComfortDelGro Corporation Australia (CDC) to trial electric buses to service its main campus.

In 2010, the Netherlands started up nine living lab projects to explore the practicalities an economics of hybrid and electric vehicles. Reflection on the experience gained after five years has informed both citizens and policymakers about potential benefits and barriers to uptake.

Submitted by Ron Beckett