Metrocare: Strategic decision-making for integrated urban infrastructure

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Cities throughout the world face long term strategic challenges in delivering large scale physical infrastructure development whilst addressing social and economic changes and challenges. In delivering such major programmes efficiently and effectively it is essential that investment decisions are thoroughly assessed and their impacts properly understood. These decisions need to be taken not only in the context of the specific development area but also that of the wider city, and over the long term. Decision makers need to take account of high-level factors such as changing demographics, political, economic and sustainability drivers, advances in technology etc. They need to understand and react to impacts on existing infrastructure and services, the environment and economy as well as social impacts such as health and wellbeing of residents, workers and visitors. Currently these ‘city systems’ are often siloed and, as a consequence, investment decisions can fail to recognise that the city is more than the sum of its parts, potentially leading to errors in infrastructure development that can take decades to correct. The Metrocare solution addresses these challenges. It comprises of an ICT-based, interactive urban development scenario creation and visualisation capability which interoperates with leading urban system models and supporting datasets that are specific to the location and context of the deployment. Metrocare will enable city decision makers and stakeholders to define and assess optional investment scenarios as part of the planning/approvals process for infrastructure development projects. Initial scenarios can be created, providing input parameters and output requirements for interoperating models that, in turn, create richer scenarios allowing decision makers to better understand the impact of strategic planning decisions on the overall ‘performance’ of city districts in the long term. Metrocare is ready to deploy as part of an iterative infrastructure investment scenario creation and assessment process. Work carried out to date indicates that there is a global demand for such a solution; it is widely applicable to all cities and regions as they adapt to the emerging needs of the economy, the environment and changes in society. However, work is needed to develop business models (cost, market growth, alignment with city systems and data, codification, skills/training etc) for the development of a commercial version that can readily be adapted and deployed widely in many urban environments and by organisations in different parts of the value chain. The project will be led by UK SME Unit9 who will provide the interactive scenario creation capability (building on the Innovate UK-funded ‘BIMCity’ project). Cambridge University, Skanska and BRE will provide city system models (e.g. land use, transport, energy, building stock, water, environment and economy as well as health, education, crime and community wellbeing). Use cases will be provided by city stakeholders (e.g. Haringey Council, the GLA and Cambridge County Council, providing a strong contextual focus based around planned developments). Other stakeholders, such as infrastructure/utilities owners and managers, may be invited to participate if the application for funding is successful.