ADEPT Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads in the UK is a three-year, UK-wide £30m programme funded by the Department for Transport that aims to decarbonise the local highway network.

The whole sector faces complexities around maintaining existing infrastructure and mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. Within this network of challenges, Live Labs 2 offers a valuable resource of information and research, bringing together seven projects from across the UK each focusing on one of four interconnected carbon reduction themes.

Running until March 2026, with an additional five-year monitoring and evaluation phase, these projects are spearheaded by local authorities in partnership with commercial and academic partners, all testing new solutions to decarbonise construction and maintenance across the whole life cycle of the local highway network.

Live Labs 2 is a combination of bold ambition from the cohort of projects and clear oversight by the Commissioning Board, a hand-picked team of people from across the sector who all have a key role to play over the duration of the scheme.

Projects report successes and failures, leading to robust, well-researched guidance and resources that will be available to stakeholders, local authorities, highways authorities and organisations across the industry to better inform future decision making.

Live Labs 2 is based around four interconnected themes that recognise overlaps between projects and provide opportunities for close collaboration.

The themes are:

• A UK centre of excellence for materials – providing a centralised hub for research and innovation for the decarbonisation of local roads materials, developing a knowledge bank, real-life conditions testing and sharing and learning insights. It will be run by North Lanarkshire Council and Transport for West Midlands.

• Corridor and place-based decarbonisation – a suite of corridor and place-based decarbonisation interventions covering urban through to rural applications. These will trial, test and showcase applications within the circular economy and localism agendas. They will be run by the Wessex partnership of Somerset County Council, Cornwall Council and Hampshire County Council and by Devon County Council, and Liverpool City Council.

• A green carbon laboratory – examining the role that the non-operational highways ‘green’ asset can play in providing a source of materials and fuels to decarbonise highway operations run by South Gloucestershire Council and West Sussex County Council.

• A future lighting testbed – a systems-based examination of the future of lighting for local roads to determine what assets are needed for our future networks and how they can be further decarbonised across their lifecycle. It will be run by East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

The legacy of Live Labs 2 will lie not just with the immediate outcomes of these projects but also in their potential to influence the broader decarbonisation agenda. The UK has made significant progress in reducing tailpipe emissions, with electric vehicles becoming increasingly mainstream and investments in active travel infrastructure playing a crucial role. However, the full decarbonisation of the road transport system requires a holistic approach – one that encompasses not just vehicles, but the highways they travel on, the systems that maintain them and the materials used in their construction and upkeep.

The positive impact of these projects could be vast. By reducing carbon in every aspect of local highways from new infrastructure to maintenance tasks like grass cutting and pothole repairs, Live Labs 2 is paving the way for a net zero future and the knowledge generated through this programme will be shared so more organisations can benefit.

As we look to the future, the question for everyone involved in the transport sector is clear: how can you contribute to this legacy? What steps can you take to reduce carbon in your decision making and champion a new standard for the industry?

More information about the Live Labs 2 programme can be found here: www.adeptnet.org.uk/livelabs2 and each of the seven Live Labs 2 projects are profiled here: www.adeptnet.org.uk/livelabs2projects

This article first appeared in the Autumn issue of LAPV. To subscribe for free click here.