Live Labs 2 low carbon roads: key design and procurement lessons for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
ADEPT has released the free online ‘Little Book of Live Labs 2’, distilling three years of £30m DfT-funded pilots into 10 immediately usable ideas for low carbon local roads, covering procurement, carbon budgeting, street lighting and verge management. Seven local authority-led projects across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland tested products, materials and techniques on live networks, cutting spend on lighting, materials and maintenance, reducing inspections and repeat visits, and shortening construction programmes. The guide gives highway authorities evidence to integrate carbon alongside cost, time and performance, with system-change actions now and government recommendations due in 2027.
Technical Brief
- £30m Department for Transport funding underpins the three‑year Live Labs 2 pilot programme.
- Seven local authority‑led consortia delivered the trials, each with commercial and academic partners.
- Evidence base is drawn from interventions on live local road networks across all four UK nations.
- Maintenance pilots focused on cutting repeat visits and inspections through revised workflows and technologies.
- Programme director Giles Perkins stresses integrating cost, time and carbon into a single decision framework.
- Final technical recommendations to DfT are scheduled for inclusion in a 2027 programme report.
Our Take
With councils in England reporting about £4.9bn of local road maintenance spend this year in another DfT-linked piece, a £30m Live Labs 2 programme is strategically positioned as a low-risk testbed whose outputs could quickly influence how a much larger maintenance budget is specified and procured.
The DfT’s parallel work on a single national digital road map for England suggests that Live Labs 2’s four interconnected themes will likely need to align with emerging data and asset information standards, so pilots that capture robust performance data will be better placed to scale by spring 2027.
In our infrastructure coverage, ADEPT appears more often in design and standards discussions than in traditional construction contracts, signalling that Live Labs 2’s seven local authority-led projects are likely to shape guidance and specifications for low-carbon roads rather than just deliver isolated schemes.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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