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This special Live Labs 2 blog is from Matt Sadler, Consultant and MaaS Product Owner, and Damon McVeigh, Assistant at Future Mobility. Matt and Damon reflect on this year’s Expo and highlight key takeaways from the event. 

The Live Labs 2 Expo on the 25th of March in Liverpool brought together professionals and stakeholders from across central and local government, industry and academia, to take stock of the programme’s progress and collectively look at what comes next. 

As the second of three national events, the day was structured to reflect both the complexity and ambition of Live Labs 2; moving beyond project updates into open conversations about what’s working, what still needs to change and where the real potential lies. Across a packed agenda, attendees took part in panel discussions, stand visits and deep-dive sessions. A 'Dragons Den' style showcase also provided a chance to hear from SMEs in the sector share their innovations. 

More than just a programme update, the Live Labs 2 Expo offered space for collaboration, highlighting the constraints that Local Highway Authorities face and demonstrating creative and practical solutions emerging from the initiative. The success of the Live Labs 2 projects are now being positioned to inspire greater confidence in innovation across the sector inspiring and enabling behaviour change; accelarating the decarbonisation of highways.

The day began with Neil Gibson, Chair of the Live Labs 2 Commissioning Board, setting the tone by highlighting the programme’s progress and potential. Neil was keen to stress that the day was not about listening, and was instead about participating. He was followed by Cllr Liam Robinson, Leader of Liverpool City Council, who welcomed attendees and underscored the city's commitment to innovation in transport. Lord Patrick McLoughlin, Chair of Transport for the North, then delivered a keynote on the national imperative for decarbonisation. This message was also echoed in Giles Perkins' review of the programme so far. Giles called for a ‘step change’ in how the sector approaches innovation, urging a collective shift from pilot to precedent. He emphasised that behavioural and systemic change will be the true successes of the Live Labs 2 programme.  

During the day, several sessions ran in parallel, offering a dynamic structure that allowed attendees to choose and prioritise their learning. One session focused on presentations by the individual Live Labs 2 projects, while separate 'Dragons Den' sessions were held in an adjacent room. During these rapid fire pitches SMEs presented to a panel of industry experts on their innovations and carbon saving ideas.

Live Labs 2 project updates 

The sessions from the Live Labs 2 projects gave attendees the chance to hear directly from the teams about their progress to date. Showing how their work is beginning to generate the real-world outcomes needed to support lasting behaviour change across the highways sector. 

• Transport for West Midlands and North Lanarkshire Council shared their approach to developing impartial, public-sector-led data on pothole repairs. By testing low-carbon materials under controlled conditions and tracking performance over time, they aim to build a clear evidence base that Local Highway Authorities can both trust and use. Digital collaboration and knowledge sharing are central to this, with a new digital hub being developed to house best practice across the programme. 
• Greenprint (South Gloucestershire and West Sussex) is focused on creating value from highways ‘waste’ such as grass clippings. After scaling up their cut-and-collect approach in year two, they are now balancing expansion with operational reality and engaging the public in what a more sustainable verge management strategy might look like. Their goal is to create a virtuous cycle of environmental and social benefits. 
• The Wessex Partnership highlighted the importance of systems thinking in embedding decarbonisation into standard practice. By using tools like doughnut economics and working with academic partners, they are exploring how to change mindsets and decision-making processes across Local Highway Authorities. A key focus for the next phase is supporting ‘fast followers’ by helping other councils learn from and adopt the approaches developed through Live Labs 2. 
• Liverpool City Council outlined their £4m programme to embed whole lifecycle carbon thinking into highways improvement planning. Their approach centres on building a system that enables better decision-making across all schemes. This is supported by a series of demonstrator projects designed to challenge conventional delivery methods and encourage wider collaboration. 
• Devon County Council, alongside Milestone Infrastructure and the University of Exeter, shared how they are working to prove that carbon-negative highways are possible. Using a typical scheme, they’re testing combinations of low-carbon materials, processes and standards to demonstrate what can be achieved, and how this might influence construction and maintenance practices nationally. 
• East Riding of Yorkshire Council presented their work to rethink the role of lighting, signage and road markings in reducing carbon. Focused on overcoming fragmented regulations and outdated assumptions, the project is trialling next-generation solar and photoluminescent technology. The aim is to develop a new evidence-led framework that delivers better visual outcomes and lower emissions. 

Dragons Den Sessions 

In the Dragons Den sessions, ten pitches were made by SMEs Circular11, Multevo, Clearview Intelligence, Prolectric, WJ North Limited, Asphalt-IQ Ltd, SolarVision Lighting Technologies, Olikrom, MHTech Energies Ltd and Velocity. Each company shared their innovative plans and ideas for the decarbonisation of highways with the 'Dragon' panel of sector specialists.

The pitches demonstrated the variety of ideas that exist within the sector and included carbon accounting smartphone apps, hybrid solar lights and photoluminescent paint. Despite different approaches, they found common ground and all were aligned on the importance of the decarbonisation of highways, and the need to transform thinking within this sector.  

Noticeably, the 'Dragons' were drawn to several key themes in their line of questioning. In the spirit of the Live Labs 2 projects, scalability was a key point, which was explored in detail. Responses on this topic revolved around integrating with existing systems and highlighting the application of the products in different environments and scenarios.

The 'Dragons' were quick to praise the products for their ambition to disrupt business as usual. However, as is crucial within the Live Labs 2 programme, they were also prepared to challenge the thinking behind the ideas. Digging deeper into key areas such as potential carbon savings and questioning the SMEs on future plans for their ideas. One company spoke about the desire and the need to produce their product more locally in order to have a greater impact. 

The two that stood out for the Dragons and were voted as joint winners were Clearview Intelligence and Circular 11. 

Clearview presented their solar powered ‘cats eyes’ which could improve visibility for drivers up to 900m away, reducing the need for street lighting on motorways and saving carbon and cost. The next step for Clearview's innovation is a new generation of lights that cost less to install and offer greater durability. They also offer smart lighting technology that can help improve safety by clearly lighting the way for drivers by showing the way at traffic lights and highlighting potential hazards or closed lanes.

Circular 11 shared with the 'Dragons' how they have been taking waste products that cannot be recycled by conventional means to produce materials that are cheaper, more durable and more sustainable than timber equivalents. Circular 11 shared that they are building the scale of their operation with new facilities and a larger intake of waste materials. The 'Dragons' concern over eventual lack of supply of waste products was answered with statistics showing the outmatched scale of waste still being created and the adaptability of Circular 11's approach to which waste they can use. 

These two innovators stood out to the 'Dragons' for their impact and real-world applications as well as clear and growing business strategies.

Behavioural Insights Team

Fittingly the conference concluded with a presentation from the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) to all attendees. The presentation focused on the behaviour change challenges and opportunities that face the decarbonisation of the highways sector in the UK. 

In their report, BIT had identified improvements for the sector within five key themes: 

• Motivation – through finance and incentives and standardised tools that are easy to use.
• Staff capital – the availability of relevant skills in the workforce in the places they are needed.
• Procurement challenges – reducing procurement challenges for Local Highway Authorities – the 2023 procurement act allowed them to set criteria for carbon reduction.
• Organisational culture – in a lot of cases Local Highway Authorities are resistant towards taking risks and subsequently towards innovations.
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing – current evidence shows siloed working practices and limited knowledge sharing.

The question left open by BIT asked 'what triggers are needed to get decision makers to take the action required to achieve behaviour changes in society?' In the final year of Live Labs 2 we might be closer to the answer. With the projects producing their final outputs, they can show local authorities and decision makers across the highways industry that innovations can work and they are worth doing. Key to this will be providing outputs from the work and communicating the successes and learning from each project.

Panel Discussion and Q&A

At the end of the day key representatives from each of the seven Live Labs 2 projects were brought together as part of a panel session. 

This gave the opportunity for key points to be made, which would reach all attendees, some of whom had not heard from every project during the day. The session, chaired by Live Labs 2 Commissioning Board member Miranda Sharp, drew out some essential conclusions which reflected again on the need for collaboration in the sector. 

Within this, the point was made by one Live Labs 2 project representative, that this year’s Expo attracted a much more engaged audience. The increase in mainstream media attention was also referenced, as well as the observation that more Local Highways Authorities are starting to understand and lean into the Live Labs 2 projects. Linking to the previous session, discussion explored principles of behaviour change, with the projects echoing that change is needed at every level. Fittingly, the panelists concluded by discussing the significant potential for change that the Live Labs 2 programme provides.

Plenary

Neil Gibson led a final plenary session, emphasising that success for the programme will ultimately be measured by scalability of innovations, and their integration; becoming Business As Usual (BAU). Neil also highlighted the main takeaways for all attendees to consider, in the form of two crucial questions:

• Can you and your organisation afford not to take into account what you have learned today?
• What will you (personally) do about this?

We're excited to see and support the next steps for each of the Live Labs 2 projects and the idea sharing and knowledge building that emerges from their work. 

Further information

Find out more about Expo 2025 here.

For more information on ADEPT Live Labs 2, please look at the dedicated section on our website.

Authors

Matt Sadler is a Consultant and MaaS Product Owner. 

Damon McVeigh is an Assistant at Future Mobility.