Accenture Helps London Develop a Blueprint to Help it Become an Intelligent City
Established by an Act of Parliament, the Greater London Authority is the administrative body for Greater London. It consists of a directly elected Mayor and an elected 25-member London Assembly.
It has powers over transport, policing, economic development, and fire and emergency planning. Its fourfold mission is to spend money wisely, maintain high standards, provide governance, and oversee the election of the Mayor and Assembly.
By any measure, London is one of the world’s premier cities and by 2025 it is expected to be the fourth-largest global city in terms of gross domestic product, behind Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles. London’s success brings with it some significant challenges: high population growth is placing the city’s systems, many of them old, under severe strain, while traffic congestion and ensuring continued access to affordable, secure and low carbon energy pose particular challenges. In addition, certain parts of the city find it hard to access economic opportunities.
London’s population is expected to grow by 1 million people in the next two decades, placing further strain on its infrastructure. More broadly, the urbanization of the global population has enormous implications for the environment. London’s challenge, therefore, is to find new ways of using its infrastructure more effectively to improve the quality of life for individuals and opportunities for businesses, while reducing its impact on the environment. The Mayor of London has set a number of overarching economic, social and environmental goals to make London the best big city in the world in which to live and work.
In pursuit of these goals, London wished to compete for £24 million in funding from the Technology Strategy Board. The funding is for the development of a large-scale demonstration of the value to be gained from integrating city systems.
The Greater London Authority called on Accenture Sustainability Services to help it compete for the £24 million of funding and explore alternative funding sources.Three Accenture specialists worked with the Greater London Authority to develop a compelling feasibility study for the East London area. The joint Accenture-client team focused on collaboratively developing innovative solutions with specific focus given to transport, energy and health.These focus areas were:- Adaptive Urban Logistics to address the congestion and pollution Networked Asset Visualizations to provide a holistic digital view of infrastructure above and below ground, designed to increase the efficiency of infrastructure renewal.
- Intelligent Heat Pathways to realize the value of district heat networks centers. Neighborhood Systems to retrofit the households served by these heat and power networks.
- Micro-work Platforms to support employment and career-building in disadvantaged communities.
The most important focus area, Digital and Organizational Integration, is intended to integrate all the above work packages’ outputs into a common digital infrastructure with an associated performance management framework. The final proposal, demonstrated the economic, social and environmental value of integrating systems by generating:- Operational savings and environmental benefits in the public sector.
- Efficiencies and new commercial opportunities in the private sector.
- Enhanced access and utility to citizens.
Accenture helped the Greater London Authority to convene a group of public and private partners to commit to providing support for a successful implementation of Linked London.
With Accenture’s help, London has been able to demonstrate convincingly its commitment to transforming the way it delivers services to its citizens. The Linked London proposal quantifies the benefits to be gained from integrating the city’s core services: Savings of £5.6 million per year from managing underground assets like pipes and cables more intelligently.- Opportunities for 2.2 million hours of additional paid employment per year.
- An average reduction in household utility bills of £250 per year.
- Electricity savings of 1,130 megawatt hours per year, enough to power 1,250 homes.
- Gas savings of 59,000 megawatt hours per year, enough to heat 5,200 homes.
- Water savings of 886,000 m3 per year, enough to fill 350 Olympic swimming pools.
- Reduction of CO2 emissions by 104,200 tonnes, equivalent to nearly 87,000 return flights from London to New York.
Linked London was placed on a shortlist of four by the Technology Strategy Board. The London team has been offered £3 million of funding to take forward specific aspects of the bid. It will develop the innovative micro-work program using an online time management platform and also promote the efficient movement of goods around the city through innovative uses of technology, space sharing and electric vehicles.In addition, and partly as a result of the work Accenture helped to complete, the Technology Strategy board has decided to locate a Future Cities Catapult in London. These Future Cities Catapults are technology and innovation centers established by the Board to help cities become smarter and more forward-thinking.