Live Labs

The ADEPT Live Labs Programme was a two-year, £22.9m project funded by the Department for Transport that will ran until November 2021. Eight local authorities and their partners worked to develop new SMART approaches across communications, materials, energy solutions and mobility. As a government funded project, there was a requirement to demonstrate that the money allocated is being well-spent, delivering valuable learning and future tangible benefits to the -highways sector. Proving Services were commissioned to perform the monitoring and evaluation role, assessing the progress and performance of each project over the two and half year investment period and completing a comprehensive end of programme review.

The approach to evaluating the Live Labs projects was designed to be light-touch and pragmatic, focusing on monitoring performance in achieving the stated objectives of the programme. This approach replaced the standard formal and detailed assessments typically required for government-funded projects, that result in a process that is often bureaucratic and costly with an emphasis on the assessment of inputs (cost and resources) rather than the realisation of valuable outcomes.