The Covid crisis has accelerated the digitisation of our world, from our day-to-day private experiences to our workplace. It has also accelerated infrastructure investments, which not only support growing population and urbanisation, but also fuel the economy in such uncertain times.

So it’s never been as obvious and important to design and build infrastructure that is smart from the outset. Infrastructure that is truly designed for the needs of the users, present and future, and that puts their experience at the centre.

WHAT IS A SMART INFRASTRUCTURE

There are many definitions of what is or what forms smart infrastructure, and a quick google search will come up with many ways to describe it.

A simple definition that we propose here is that a smart infrastructure is the integration of physical infrastructure with digital technologies, in order to deliver superior benefits and outcomes. These additional benefits include:

• • • superior customer experience,

    • efficiencies,

    • increased reliability,

    • whole of lifecycle cost savings,

    • improved security and safety,

    • and a reduced carbon footprint.

In short, smart infrastructure deliver much better services and outcomes to the users of this infrastructure, and to the entire community. They improve liveability, productivity and sustainability in our cities and regions.

There are already many known examples of smart infrastructure:

• • • Smart railways rely on advanced technology to carry 40% more passengers on the same physical infrastructure;

    • Smart grids allow flexible production and consumption of electricity, and the integration of renewable sources. This results in the reduction of costs for users and the community, and the achievement of sustainability targets;

    • Smart airports analyse all movements data to inform and guide the passengers in real-time, and to ensure adequate staffing and operations of check-in counters, customs gates and luggage belts considering the volume of travellers at any point in time;

    • Intelligent transport systems make the roads safer, increase their capacity and reduce congestion.

WHY IS IT DIFFICULT TO BUILD SMART INFRASTRUCTURE

Governments and public institutions have recently more clearly shown the way. NSW Government has released its “Smart Infrastructure Policy” in July 2020 and Infrastructure Australia their 2021 Plan, promoting “digital by default” infrastructure projects.

Whilst it is encouraging that policy direction is shown, in reality, there is still much to be done in order to build truly smart infrastructure.

Multiple barriers include cultural differences between construction, engineering and digital sectors, the tendency to repeat known processes and solutions, and the lack of incentive along the industry’s fragmented value chain.

Other hurdles include the concerns around cyber-security and privacy, and the related complex evolving regulatory and threat landscape.

Finally, whilst the benefits to the users, to the community, to the environment are wide and easy to understand, it is sometimes difficult to quantify all these benefits simply enough to come up with a strong business case for the “smart” part of the infrastructure.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING IT RIGHT

It is however extremely important to get it right, since large infrastructure projects usually deliver an asset that will last 50 or 100 years! Furthermore, while we don’t know exactly what the world will look like by this horizon, we know that the disruption and possibilities brought by technology will keep accelerating, and that only by embedding the right technological foundations, will the smart infrastructure be able to adapt, evolve, and deliver more benefits in future.

The breathtaking speed at which technology evolves already offers new possibilities. The democratisation and commoditisation of cloud, IoT, analytics and AI will allow, when embedded properly in infrastructure, to deliver functions and benefits that were not even contemplated a few years ago!

As an example, in the near future, a driverless metro will be able to “sense” the activity and movements of people in the entire region in order to predict and adapt its operations automatically so that, at any time, there is sufficient trains running to transport all the people in an orderly fashion.

In other terms, whether the city has been hit by a snow storm or it is a fine day, whether it is the middle of summer holidays or the frantic days before Christmas, whether it is off peak hours or peak period with severe accidents on the road network, the smart infrastructure will use their sensors, multiple data sources to forecast the demand thanks to advanced AI engines, and automatically adjust the frequency of the trains to match the fluctuating number of commuters. Such that at any time, the transport service offers a comfortable experience and remains efficient.

So where to start, and how can we ensure that today’s investments will deliver benefits tomorrow, and for generations to come?

There are naturally many aspects that need to be considered here, which is where PL Advisory provides advice to organisations. For this article we have chosen to focus on 2 priority topics: an outcomes-focused approach, and the vital importance of building a multidisciplinary team.

PRIORITY 1: FOCUS ON OUTCOMES

First, at the heart of any new development lie the outcomes that the new smart infrastructure should deliver, and how this infrastructure will contribute to the greater outcomes of the entire system, city or region.

Every infrastructure owner, developer, or investor will start by exploring high-level framing questions:

• • • how to make the customer experience outstanding?

    • How easy will it be to operate the new infrastructure?

    • How can it be maintained in the most cost-effective manner?

    • What more can be done to make it truly sustainable?

    • And how to make sure that it will form part of the greater system around it - whether the transport system, the energy network, the precinct, the city or the state?

These questions, and the exploration of these outcomes, shall not only be “must-answer” questions for the sake of building a compelling business case.

Once the economic viability of a new infrastructure investment is established, the answer to those questions and the definition of specific outcomes become the lighthouse that will guide the development and delivery of the smart infrastructure every step of the way.

Indeed, the translation of those outcomes into requirements, functional specifications, design choices, high-level technology architecture, operational readiness frameworks - shall guide the progress of the project from start to finish.

This will require leveraging disciplines from design thinking to customer journey mapping, from system engineering to operational integration.

PRIORITY 2: BUILD A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM

And this leads to the second point: it is imperative to build a truly multidisciplinary team from the outset.

The development and delivery of “traditional” infrastructure mainly relies on technical expertise from civil to structural engineering, including all the disciplines associated with the construction industry.

However the development of smart infrastructure needs a broadening of the capability of the team in charge of delivering it.

The array of skills required during the development and delivery phases ranges from civil engineers to cyber-security specialist, and include expert inputs from disciplines like AI, operations, customer experience, system engineering, telecommunication networks, digital engineering, electrical engineering, IoT and sensors, automation, sustainability amongst many.

Importantly, the Program Director needs to include new roles in their leadership team: in addition to leaders for engineering, delivery, and commercial (the usual backbone of an infrastructure delivery team), it is more and more critical to appoint:

• a Director for Customers and Operations, who will relentlessly define and keep the focus of the team on the outcomes, as described previously;

• a Director for Technology, who will have the ability to translate those outcomes into high level technology systems that will need to be integrated into the smart infrastructure, together with the data platforms that will deliver the adequate insights to the customers, operators and maintainers.

These new leadership roles, sitting at the top table alongside leaders looking after the construction, engineering and finance of the project, will ensure that the infrastructure development and delivery team will be able to weigh up trade-offs and make informed decisions that will ultimately leave the legacy of an infrastructure that will deliver great outcomes for users and communities, and remain able to adapt to changing context and constraints, by leveraging contemporary digital tools and platforms.

THE ROAD AHEAD

The successful delivery of smart infrastructure will depend on these two key enablers being in place. It will of course also rely on a number of other factors and success conditions that draw on the best practices related to complex program management, design and construction, technology integration, asset management and more.

In our next article, we will further expand on the key principles for defining and managing the integration of technology to make infrastructure really smart.

Overall, the complexity of successfully integrating these diverse disciplines, of coordinating such broad set of skills, methodologies and frameworks, shall not be underestimated, and calls for further examination and lessons learnt across the industry.

If you would like to share your ideas, successes and learnings, or discover how PL Advisory can support the development and delivery of your smart infrastructure - please contact us and we will pleased to discuss your specific needs!!!