The

Little
Book of
PUBLIC SPACE
and the
Internet
of Things

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino,
Andrew Hudson-Smith and Duncan Wilson
THE PETRAS NATIONAL
CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
FOR IoT SYSTEMS
CYBERSECURITY

Editor of the PETRAS Little Books series:

Dr Claire Coulton
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University

With design by Steve Parkman at 42 Creative Thinking

and Michael Stead, Roger Whitham and Rachael Hill
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University

ISBN: 978-1-86220-391-4

© ImaginationLancaster 2020
All rights reserved.
The
Little
Book of
PUBLIC SPACE
and the
Internet
of Things
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino,
Andrew Hudson-Smith and Duncan Wilson
Acknowledgements
This book is based on our research conducted for the PETRAS National Centre
of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity funded by the UK Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant EP/N02334X/1.

Notable thanks go to The London Legacy Development Corporation, we are

grateful to Jim Wood, Ben Edmonds, Tony Tolley and Emma Fry for speaking
to us about their experience of managing the Queen Elizabeth Olympic
Park, a unique space we drew much inspiration from in this book.

We’d also like to thank UCL contributors who took the time to speak to us
including Francesca Fryer and Kate Jones.

A policy-based vision was represented by Nathan Pierce of the Smart

London Board and a development perspective was shared by Rupert Green
of Lendlease, Angela Maurer of LandSec and Andrew Roughan of HereEast.

Other contributors include Peter Bihr, Ben Cerveny of The Foundation for
Public Code, Usman Haque and Ling Tang of Umbrellium, Emma Bearman
of Playful Leeds, Alasdair Davies of the London Zoo and landscape architect
Jeremy Rye.
Table of Contents
What this Little Book tells you............................................................................................... 6

The Internet of Things?............................................................................................................... 8

What is public space?................................................................................................................. 11

Safety & Security........................................................................................................................... 17

Maintenance..................................................................................................................................... 22

Health & public good................................................................................................................. 25

Biodiversity & Conservation................................................................................................... 29

Transport & Signage.................................................................................................................... 32

Accessibility........................................................................................................................................ 35

Future trends...................................................................................................................................... 37

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................... 40
What this Little Book tells you
Our public spaces are changing, they are at the forefront of a technological
revolution yet this is a revolution that often remains hidden from sight. Sensors
are being installed and the ability to interact with objects in our spaces - from
projects such as the PETRAS Talking Trees through to conversations with Lamp
Posts or data interactions with local wildlife is changing our interactions both
in and with these places and spaces.

Via a series of interviews with key players in the field and a deep dive into
the landscape of the last 20 years of developments around the world, this
Little Book explores the current implications of the Internet of Things (IoT) in
public places and looks at the future of technology trends for these spaces.

We explore safety and security and move onto maintenance (it’s more
interesting than it sounds and is arguably a key driver for the use of the
Internet of Things in our public realm). We then look at some of the issues
affecting people and explore health, community building and culture while
exploring the use of public space for play. After this, we explore
conservation and culture, transport and signage, accessibility and then,
finally, we discuss future trends.

The implications and insights in this Little Book are wider than public spaces.
The use of sensors in our environment can open up a new understanding of
how urban places work. From social interactions and the importance of play
through to a feeling of wellbeing and simply acting as a break from the
surrounding environment, our public spaces are all important. This
importance is often focused on cities due to the history and importance of
the public realm but it is equally applicable to the local park or town square
in smaller cities, towns and villages. As ever with society and technology,
things are always changing and arguably, at an increasingly rapid pace,
our public spaces are perhaps not as public as we thought and with this shift
in public/private ownership the ability to deploy technology changes. Things
can also be taken to extremes, where the need for ethical and governance
structures to help temper the rise of technology in our public life. This Little
Book explores these factors with a number of examples. Yet at its heart, the
Little Book is about our places and spaces and how the future is one of
adapting and opening up access to not only space but the context and
access to two multiway interactions via the Internet of Things.
We start by examining what the IoT actually is, in a sea of definitions,
and move onto exploring different themes (mentioned above), supplemented
by interviews with local stakeholders in London and beyond as well as
partners of UCL CASA. At the end of every theme, we also highlight some
of the thought leaders worth keeping an eye on in the years to come.
The Internet
of Things?
Defining the internet of things (IoT) at the time of writing this book is to
engage in an attempt to clarify a complex landscape of marketing terms.
Referring to its origins when the term was coined by Kevin Ashton1, the
original thought was to add metadata to our physical world, especially when
it came to stock management and supply chain verification. What it has
become today is a shortcut for the digital capabilities of the physical world
when sensors, cameras, motors, and microphones are distributed and
connected to the internet.

Over the last 10 years, the internet of things has also been responsible for
the creation of products with unintended consequences that has given the
sector a complex reputation. This leads us to the slightly harshly termed,
@theinternetofshit on Twitter, which chooses to focus only on the bad
whereas much good can be gained from measuring things more precisely,
in situ, from remote locations, whether that is from a few metres away or
from thousands of miles.

The remoteness, however, represents a new shift in the power dynamic

around physical spaces and acknowledging this shift is central to this Little
Book. Having sensors connected to the internet - arguably the simplest view
of the IoT - dotted around in our homes, our cities, and open spaces can
mean that power is removed from local actors, decision-making moved away
from the source, surveillance is supported, and essentially remote control
actions are enabled. A remotely monitored society, with decisions made
based on data viewed remotely, is, of course, a road that is to be avoided,
but a path that is possible and indeed one that is opening up. This is why
over the past three years, an active global conversation around ethics has
taken place. The ethics around the Internet of Things in public spaces is at
the heart of the movement.

1
Ashton, K. That ‘Internet of Things’ Thing. The RFID Journal, 2009.
http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?4986.

8
We hope that as you explore the topics of how new technologies are applied
in the public space; you’ll consider the bad as well as the good and use
these reflections when hearing about the internet of things in other rooms,
with other voices. No one in technology, policy, planning, design or any
profession linked to designing and managing our spaces can afford to be
removed from the consequences of what they build and its impact on public
space - this is truer than ever with the deployment of IoT devices.

COVID19 and the public spaces

of the near future
As this little book goes to print, public space has already started to change
because of the variety of responses to the COVID-19 virus. In many nations
affected, a variety of ’lockdowns’ have been imposed. From strict impositions
in China to a more lax approach in sparsely populated countries like
Sweden, there has been no universal experience of a lockdown. Some
people spent months at home while non-essential retail was closed and only
food vendors and essential services were opened. Others were simply
encouraged to establish a ‘social distance’ of 2 metres when interacting with
others. Plastic barriers have been erected in corner shops and supermarkets.
N95 medical face masks are being worn to protect workers most at risk while
the general public is encouraged to wear masks when in public transport
and in cramped locations where air conditioning is likely to be inadequate.
Sidewalks have been widened to allow for a 2-metre distance between
pedestrians and cycling is encouraged when possible. Public spaces, have
become the places we both feel safer in but also at risk, depending on both
their size and use. As temperatures rise and we enter the start of summer
2020, COVID-19 will require a mixture of social and technological responses
and many of these will start to appear in our public spaces.

Contact tracing mobile apps are already being developed using Bluetooth
technology. From recording mobile phones within a 2m distance to notifying
someone when someone they’ve been next to has tested positive, the
potential for false positives and data breaches are numerous. (https://tracing-
risks.com/) . Elsewhere, more personal data like temperature is likely to be

9
collected in public spaces using digital, sometimes connected thermometers
(https://bleepbleeps.com/pages/tony-tempa-smart-thermometer) and
thermal cameras. What happens to this data over time is unknown but it’s
not hard to imagine it might contribute to future profiling, immunity passports,
creditworthiness scores or insurance products.

The capacity for the virus to spread in enclosed spaces is likely to drive the
need for more ample public space to move our group activities. Parks are at
the forefront of this and their current focus as places of recreation may well
shift into an additional place of work, outside the confines and away from
the risk of the offices. Indeed, the city could well have reached a forced
tipping point, whereby the public spaces become more valuable than the
offices, it is in these spaces where we are likely to see an increase in the use
of technology but also more of a culture of tracking and tracing our activities.
The health of our bodies is linked now more than ever to the health of our
cities and public spaces and as the fears of a second peak loom, the future
is hazy yet increasingly dependent on the usefulness of technology solutions.

10
What is
public space?
‘By its very nature, public space
should be unscripted. It’s not
designed for a specific activity but it
can accommodate a number of
different things. The question is: who
benefits from an unstructured space?
Who designs, as Bernard Tschumi
might ask, the script for a space?
[...]. This isn’t easy to do as it
requires long-term investment and a
clear governance structure in place
that ‘belongs’ in a space that may
change over time.’

Usman Haque, Founder of

Umbrellium

Placemaking, space making, public space all compete for our attention, as
per our analysis and research in 2019. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a
number of different definitions for the word ‘public’:

1. Of or concerning the people as a whole

2. Open to or shared by all the people of an area or country
3. Of or involved in the affairs of the community, especially in
government or entertainment
4. Done, perceived, or existing in open view
5. Of or provided by the state rather than an independent,
commercial company

11
These definitions include concepts describing the way people negotiate living
together peacefully in society and concepts of governance, transparency,
community management and a ‘collective’ interest are also built into this definition.

Other ways to read the public realm, especially in a UK context is through the
lens of the report on Public Space in London2: Public spaces are a city’s living
room, its lungs and a location for civic life, (p 8, Public Space in London).

The report goes onto to quote the current London Plan3 which states:

Whether publicly or privately owned, public realm should be

open, free to use and offer the highest level of public access.
These spaces should only have rules restricting the behaviour
of the public that are considered essential for safe management
of the space.,

(P9, Public Space in London).

The use of the term ‘should’ highlights the tension between public and
privately owned public spaces; it is this tension where the IoT is increasingly
coming into play. However, in general, when we think of public space, the
focus is often on access to this space or the constraints in accessing it. The
streets of our cities, the squares, and the parks we walk in, the roads we drive
or are driven down all come to mind. The notion of public space focuses our
mind’s eye to the space we share with others.

By opposition, we then formulate our idea of private space. From the building
we work in that requires we wear a badge or the shopping district that uses
private police forces to monitor shoppers, we think we know public from
private space. All land (except oddly for churches) in the UK is in fact
privately owned. 4 Public good, the Commons5, and many other related
philosophical constructs are extremely powerful, especially in politics,
but they do not actually correspond to the way in which land is bought,
developed, owned, rented and managed in the 21st century. Private interests
are present at every level.

2
Bosetti (N)., Brown (R)., Belcher (E)’, & Washington-Ihieme (M)., Public London: the
regulation, management and use of public spaces, The Centre for London.

3
https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/planning/london-plan/current-london-plan
4
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hm-land-registry-commercial-and-corporate-ownership-data
5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

12
Even with these interests in the mix, the success of private interests depends
on aligning their interest with the other contributors to public wealth: shop
tenants, schools boards, cultural institutions, hospitals, passersby, police, for
example, all are required to make public life go round.

Most multi-stakeholder conversations will start with two common focus points:
crime reduction and job creation in an area. However, other needs exist. In
the following diagram, we have mapped them using Maslow Hierarchy of
Needs as a model. (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory
in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted
as hierarchical levels within a pyramid6.)

The visualisation in Image 1 could allow stakeholders to see their dependencies

and their place in a complex ecosystem. Whether the stakeholder is a local
authority, a waste removal company, maintenance contractors, security firms,

health services, social services, policing functions, retail tenants, urban planner,
architect, developer, construction company, IT contractor, or landowner, they
rely on others in their interactions with citizens. Everyone from the able-bodied
local resident, disabled visitor or tourist should be able to interact with many
of the services developed by these stakeholders and many of these are
implementing interactions focused around the Internet of Things. This is only
6
McLeod, S. (2018), Maslow Hierarchy of Needs,
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

13
the latest in a series of technological developments which have had an
impact on the public sphere and especially the delivery of services by cities
and local authorities.

The desktop computing revolution followed by the growth of internet access

and more recently smart mobile penetration in urban areas has had
an important impact on the expected mechanisms of delivery of public
services. From ‘mobile-first’ websites, mobile parking permits, paperless
communications and digital wayfinding apps, cities and local authorities have
had to partner with IT providers and think through the implications for citizens
and local residents more specifically. Moving through a shopping mall, a
visitor may expect free wifi connectivity, or good mobile network
connectivity, to the point where a building might make it part of its Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs)7. This seamless access in turn makes it easier
for potential customers to search for an item they have found and order it
online from a competitor.

More ubiquitous and good quality connectivity also implies that it can be
embedded in the physical world instead of just staying on a device.
Everything from bins8, lamp posts9, post boxes10 and animals11 are being
monitored with the help of a denser network of connectivity options that
today includes wifi, Bluetooth, LoRa, LTE/4G & eventually 5G.

These projects and applications are often described as part of a wider

umbrella term of ‘Smart Cities’. In a recent report by Privacy International12,
two possible definitions of the ‘smart city’ are offered by The World Bank:

7
https://wiredscore.com/uk/
8
http://bigbelly.com/
9
https://www.ubitricity.co.uk/
10
https://www.hellolamppost.co.uk/
11
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2017/jun/smart-detectors-monitor-urban-bat-life
12
https://www.privacyinternational.org/topics/smart-cities

14
The first one is:
A technology-intensive city, with sensors everywhere and highly
efficient public services, thanks to information that is gathered
in real-time by thousands of interconnected devices.

The second one is:

A city that cultivates a better relationship between citizens and
governments - leveraged by available technology. They rely on
feedback from citizens to help improve service delivery and
creating mechanisms to gather this information.

The ability to connect things is real, but how they shape the experience
of service delivery and crucially, how it affects people’s expectations is
not always straightforward. A digital ‘swipe’ is always quicker than what
an ecosystem can deliver. Equally, varying levels of digital literacy make
the widespread adoption of some solutions complicated and face-to-face,
print and phone-based support services are still largely provided across
all the services.

Finally, the digital rights of citizens get more complex when data is being
gathered about them without their full knowledge because the sensing
capability is not where it is expected. This is often the case when cameras are
deployed in public space. The European Union’s General Data Protection
Regulation in 2018 gave citizens unprecedented rights to their own data but
informing the general public of these rights and how they play out in public
space is complex. Concepts of privacy and consent are executed differently
in public than on a device and at home, where ‘privacy’ feels like a clearer
concept. The refusal of local councils to share data with the Home Office13
about their homeless community in 2019 is an example of an ecosystem of
services sharing responsibility for a person’s experience of the city, their data
and by extension, their privacy. Figuring out why you should invest in, install
and maintain a new technology is a pretty well-known process for privately
owned research and corporate IT groups. However, when that technology
is deployed in the public realm and is comprised of complex hardware that
needs updating or maintaining and has an impact on privacy, the ensuing
complexity may not be worth it. Andrew Roughan, Managing Partner at
Plexal positions this in relation to air quality monitoring, an issue we will cover
later on:

13
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/17/councils-refusing-to-share-personal-data-
of-rough-sleepers-with-home-office

15
 The economic case is often eroded by device managementand
life cycle management when a product is set up. Air quality is
one of those instances where the return on investment is very
poor once you connect the amount of maintenance required.
Trials also suffer from having ambitions that are too modest,
their objectives are too low to make them worth investing in the
longer term.

Technology service providers are in the middle of an identity

crisis and moving to ‘software as a service’ models to reach out
directly to the end consumer. But that requires society-led
outcomes to become part of the big business thinking which is
a distinctively different way for large enterprises to think.

What lessons can we learn then from the work done and the experiments in
public space? Is it all too complex already? Is it worthwhile looking to
hardware solutions to help us with public life? In this book, we will explore
the different ways in which technology in public spaces can provide some of
the stakeholders a different set of opportunities but also highlight the risks and
frameworks for future-proofing any public stakeholders’ thinking. Because it’s
the public good and not only the public realm which is at stake.

16
Safety &
Security

CCTV camera in London

The most well-known use of connected hardware in the public realm relates
to issues of safety and security. Depending on the risk profile of a city in
terms of political upheaval, terrorism and crime, the major stakeholders (land
management companies or owners) will take different approaches to
installing connected hardware.

The UK’s use of CCTV since the early 1960s is a good example of security-
related technology in the public realm14. Once installed, their potential
application expanded from crowd monitoring to theft prevention, traffic
monitoring and automatic number-plate recognition systems. The 1991 bombing
of the Baltic Exchange Building and the 1993 bombing of Bishopsgate by the

14
https://www.mrfsgroup.com/a-brief-history-of-cctv-use-in-the-uk/

17
IRA subsequently and the ongoing ‘Troubles’ saw a ‘ring of steel’15 installed
to secure the public realm against terrorism in London and Belfast. After the
attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City in 2001, the idea that a
camera could do the whole job was challenged. Cameras couldn’t just be
locally connected, they needed to be connected to more important crime
databases and thus a bit more of ‘the internet’.

More recently, the amount of technology in cars, taxis and freight vehicles
means the cybersecurity landscape is larger than it was 10 years ago. Risk
for building managers becomes a matter of priority as the attack surface
becomes more important and especially when experimenting with new
technologies is part of a modernisation agenda.

When it comes to the use of cameras, the website for Information

Commissioner’s Office (ICO) contains advice on CCTV16 cameras which
includes taking the nature of the installation into consideration:

The CCTV operator must let people know they are using CCTV.
Signs are the most usual way of doing this. The signs must be
clearly visible and readable, and should include the details of
the organisation operating the system if not obvious.

CCTV should only be used in exceptional circumstances in areas

where you normally expect privacy – such as in changing rooms
or toilets, and should only be used to deal with very serious
concerns. The operator should make extra effort to ensure that
you are aware that cameras are in use.

This is difficult to police and can be abused. An example of what can be

called ‘poor communication’ has been the King’s Cross Estate application of
cameras with facial recognition. Kings Cross Estate is one of the first
landowners to acknowledge it was deploying the software, described by
human rights groups as authoritarian, partly because it captures and
analyses images of people without their consent. The lack of public
communication, clear consent and GDPR governance structures coupled with
the ensuing PR scandal forced the estate to cancel the project17.

15
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Steel_(London)
16
https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/cctv/
17
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/02/facial-recognition-technology-
scrapped-at-kings-cross-development

18
While the use of camera technology with facial recognition is concerning, the
culture and politics of the country have a very important role to play in deciding
the appropriate level of intrusion of any technology in the public realm.

In Singapore cameras in private hire cars or taxis record both audio and
video while buses were considered by the local authorities closer to public
space, so are so far exempt18.

Cameras are also involved in capturing public space without the same
stakeholders involved, for example when security cameras installed for domestic
real estate use is installed at street level. This also applies to doorbells that have
been enhanced with cameras and internet connectivity in the past years to help
owners manage visitors, Airbnb guests and home deliveries.

Amazon’s Ring doorbell which includes a camera pointing towards the street.

Doorbells like ‘Ring’ by Amazon or ‘Nest Hello’ from Google are being used
for law enforcement. In the U.S., 600 police forces have signed up to use
Ring and are now able to request up to 12 hours of video from anyone within
half a square mile of a suspected crime scene, covering a 45-day time span.19

18
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/audio-recording-be-allowed-vehicle-recording-
devices-taxis-private-hire-cars
19
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/19/police-can-keep-ring-camera-
video-forever-share-with-whomever-theyd-like-company-tells-senator/

19
Not every solution has to use camera readings though, sometimes Bluetooth
connectivity embedded into lamp posts can also give authorities enough
information in spaces that are more enclosed, but an extension to public
space. The MyGuardian app20 was developed and trialled on the University
of Surrey Campus to help students alert someone when they were going to
be walking home so that an unexpected delay was noticed straight away
and their last location documented clearly.

Another way to develop safety and security in public spaces is tracking the
number of mobile phones connected to a Wi-Fi network can indicate the size
of a crowd across an entire area while keeping people’s information private.

So far, we have talked about safety in terms of a fixed piece of hardware,

but some of them are becoming mobile, moving around our public spaces.
For example, rape or personal alarms have also been upgraded by
connectivity21. Companies like Ignius22 offer a geolocation aware cardholder
or pendant that allows a wearer to report an incident in real-time.

Sammy Screamer, the remote movement monitor by Bleep Bleeps

20
https://ics-iot.weebly.com/eyehub.html
21
https://wealarms.co.uk/
22
https://www.womenofwearables.com/new-blog/wow-woman-in-wearable-tech-chakshu-
saharan-founder-and-managing-director-of-ignius

20
Sammy Screamer23, a product of UK company Bleep Bleeps, is a movement
sensor which alerts parents via an app when a pram might be moved or
something else is leaving a set parameter around the app.

These solutions don’t strictly require the public realm to change, but enabling
them, encouraging access to these solutions while offering clear signposting
is also part of a public safety and security agenda within the Internet
of Things.

Thought leaders you should follow

• Privacy International (privacyinternational.org)

• Big Brother Watch (bigbrotherwatch.org.uk)
• Urban Analytics, Alan Turing Institute (turing.ac.uk)
• Alison Powell, Ada Lovelace Institute (adalovelaceinstitute.org)
• Doteveryone (doteveryone.org.uk)

23
https://bleepbleeps.com/pages/sammy-screamer-motion-alarm

21
Maintenance

Big Belly solar powered bins

22
Connected sensors and actuators can also help city stakeholders manage
crucial upkeep functions. What sensors are especially good at is rapid
reporting of change of condition. From a change of state (on or off) to a
more subtle change over time (levels in a bin), this can be useful to make
decisions remotely, more rapidly and more strategically.

Applications in this space haven’t historically taken advantage of internet

connectivity. For example, monitoring ambient light levels to turn on street
lights, or measuring the presence of a car and the swipe of a card to open
a barrier are closed systems without any reliance on the internet. However,
by looking at weather patterns, a small sensor can act differently and
different kinds of contextual patterns can help make very different decisions.

Seeing a multitude of bins dynamically fill up in a park on a warm day or

during an event while accessing the number of people connected to a local
Wi-Fi network can help cleaning teams deploy resources very differently than
if they see one bin at a time without any extra layer of information.

Bins by Renew London which tracked IP addresses.

There is of course a balancing act, just like the examples in the previous
section showed us. The overzealous use of sensors on bins was fatal to the
Renew project24 around Liverpool Street Station. The project was shut down
because it captured too much information, collecting the IP addresses of
mobile phones that walked past them. Far from being necessary to the job
of keeping these bins empty, the company tried to develop dynamic

24
City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins, BBC News, August 2013
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23665490

23
advertising on the side of the bins that would cater to the average person
working or commuting to the area. This is a key example of a business model
that is too focused on advertising as a way to prop up the company instead
of focusing on a realistic market dynamic.

The Big Belly Bin25, pictured at the beginning of this section, is a more successful
example of a bin that uses a solar panel to power its sensor and internal waste
compactor. Data is dynamically sent to a proprietary platform allowing waste
removal companies to access information and thus send out their staff at the
optimum time. Domestic waste removal is also going to move on to be more
connected. By making citizens pay for their food waste via weighing them in
RFID enabled communal bins, South Korea was able to dramatically reduce
food waste26. This relies on a system of national ID cards, which many countries
have not been successful in rolling out27, so again, the local geopolitical situation
matters in how the internet of things is adopted and shaped locally.

Waste management is also tied to the current conversations in politics around

climate change. Councillors in Bristol have been keen to offer connected
domestic waste bins so that citizens can get a better view as to what happens
to the contents of their waste28. This desire for more transparency on waste
removal and recycling will only intensify and much research is being done
about bins that sort materials automatically using cameras like Clean Robotics’
own ‘Trashbot’29 or Bin-E30, which is targeting office spaces. These levels of
automation will possibly become a feature of public waste management.

Other applications are hyperlocal and take advantage of digital rating

systems to let facilities managers know what is going on with a space. For
example, the feedback application ‘Happy or Not’31 allows a stakeholder
to gather dynamic in-situ feedback remotely with a smart connected sticker.

Thought leaders you should follow

• The Restart Project (therestartproject.org)
• Festival of Maintenance (festivalofmaintenance.org.uk)
• Connected Places Catapult (cp.catapult.org.uk)

25
http://info.bigbelly.com/sc-data-sheet
26
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/south-korea-recycling-food-waste/
27
https://www.ft.com/content/2ec95b9a-4709-11e8-8c77-ff51caedcde6
28
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/calls-chips-monitor-how-much-3207902
29
https://cleanrobotics.com/
30
http://bine.world/howitworks/
31
https://www.happy-or-not.com/en/smiley-wall/

24
Health &
public good

NO2 Annual concentration in London 2010, modelled by the London Atmospheric Emissions
Inventory. All of Inner London and many major roads in Outer London greatly exceed the EU limit

Another function of public life and public spaces is in supporting healthy lives
and active communities no matter the level of urbanisation.

Air quality monitoring using internet-connected sensors has become a

technological tool to talk about health in cities. Since the Guardian started
actively reporting on this issue, UK boroughs and their performance in terms
of particulates have been under public scrutiny32. Knowing the level of
particulates isn’t enough though as public space stakeholders consider the

32
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/27/pollution-map-reveals-unsafe-air-
quality-at-almost-2000-uk-sites

25
return on investment as highlighted by Nathan Pierce the Program Director
for Sharing Cities and Head of the Smart London Team:

When it comes to something like air quality, for example, the

business case is more difficult to define because the benefits
are mainly social and environmental, not necessarily financial.
This is why more effective air quality related projects have
been led by public-private partnership structures like the work
we are doing with the Alan Turing Institute, the Mayor’s Air
Quality Fund and Transport for London’s ULEZ program. We
also want to encourage people to use more varied methods
to get around the city, getting more people on public
transport and less journeys done by petrol cars. To support
this we are increasing the number of charging stations like
Ubitricity or shared economy /mobility as a service scheme.

Raising awareness can have a double objective: to raise citizen awareness

and give them the tools to change their own interaction with the public realm
or raising awareness at a policy level so the vendors capturing the data are
encouraged to report on the results.

Investing in technological and connected solutions in this space can only be

useful if coupled with long-term policy changes such as banning diesel
vehicles or banning cars in some areas. All the stakeholders, including car
owners themselves, need to be educated. If a car-free experience of the
public space is the future in terms of improving health in crowded cities, then
capturing longitudinal data remains one of the ways to convince first diesel
and petrol car owners of their impact and then the people they love of their
impact. Obviously, this can only happen when alternatives are available so
public transport provision is crucial, especially in rural areas.

The growth of the electric car market and the infrastructure needed to charge
cars varies across nations so a medium-term solution is still the coverage of
public transport. A future comprehensive network of charging stations that
are public, shared, work-based and at home will make it easier to make the
leap in the instances where public transportation investments are weak.

Unfortunately, much has been written of the impact on traffic of car-sharing

services33 like Uber, Lyft and others. They are not an option when considering
our need to lessen the number of cars on the road unless their entire fleets
are 100% electric.

33
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-for-a-large-share-of-traffic/

26
Cycling is also a healthier option but the overall infrastructure is often skewed
to cars and cycle sharing schemes have also proved very wasteful and
blurring the lines of responsibility as illustrated by the experience of
Phil Gyford34, a London-based technologist:

Last night I came across a Lime e-bike, dead on its side in a

disabled car-parking space. I set about rescuing it, thinking
that its conventional home, annoyingly littering the pavement,
would be less bad.
As soon as I picked it up it started beeping, loudly. Then a
computery woman’s voice began saying, “Please unlock me
to ride me or I’ll call the police!”
I set the bike upright on its stand but the beeping and the
verbal warning repeatedly alternated. I continued walking
home, quickly, while the once quiet street was filled with the
alarming noise, which slowly faded as I turned a corner.
Maybe it’s still going.
Horrible. One good deed rewarded with a scary blend of the
so-called sharing economy, the commercialisation of communal
spaces, and authoritarian surveillance capitalism, all sugared
with the unbearable style of wackaging. May every dockless
bike and scooter scheme go bust as soon as possible.

Building healthy communities doesn’t only mean air quality. Communal and
individual behaviours around health, whether that is by helping someone
find a public toilet, a sexual clinic or a place to exercise in their
neighbourhood, are more and more enabled by digital services but
connected hardware also has a role to play. GPS embedded inside the soles
of shoes for Alzheimer’s patients35 can help find a person without the help
of emergency services. Wearable technologies help people track their levels
of exercise (iWatch, Fitbit, etc) but they could also act as ways of identifying
areas that feel safe to people36 at different times of the day.

Just like smartphones, the technologies that are initially ‘personal’ can
influence the way in which public space is used if that data is shared. In all
these contexts though, and especially when it comes to health-related issues,
the ways in which data is shared matters in public spaces. Citizens need to

34
https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2019/10/06/weeknotes/
35
https://gpssmartsole.com/gpssmartsole/
36
https://neos.co.uk/can-wearable-technology-help-us-design-better-cities/

27
be encouraged to be early adopters without fear. As Emma Frost from the
London Legacy Development Corporation concludes:

Questions that should be asked include: how public is the

public realm? Is it a galvanising force in the community?
Sometimes, it’s less about the built environment and more
about the spirit of doing the work, engaging with communities,
respecting the heritage of the communities that are already
there. Communities are not a petri dish though and cannot be
treated as predictable sets of conditions, there has to be some
flexibility, especially if the space is being used to learn,
explore, test and try new things. What people are willing to
do, engage with and trust is important to the outcome.

Thought leaders you should follow

• Playable City (playablecity.com)
• Emma Bearman, Playful Leeds (playfulanywhere.fun)
• Tom Armitage (infovore.org)
• Jane McGonigal (janemcgonigal.com)
• Six to Start (sixtostart.com)
• Frank Kelly, King’s College London, London Air Quality Network
(londonair.org.uk)
• Michelle Murphy, Technoscience Research Unit (technoscienceunit.org)
Runfriendly (runfriendly.com)

28
Biodiversity &
Conservation

Oracle’s Bee Project which tracks the behaviour of swarms in and around a hive

Part of public life that is becoming increasingly important is the preservation

and growth of natural spaces and the conservation of urban species. Many
non-profits have been working with new technologies to track endangered
species37, but it’s also the creatures closest to us in cities that matter. Many
technologically enabled projects are there to help count or protect bees,
butterflies, birds and trees.

Not every project is necessarily commercially viable but ideas are plentiful.
Fieldwork Facility is a design studio who made the Nest Project that
encourages a DIY approach in providing birds with more spaces to nest in38.
The Internet of Trees is a London-based startup looking to add sensors on
trees in heavily forested areas to help alert and locate the source of forest
fires39. Oracle has been working with the charity The Bee Project to use

37
https://www.wwf.org.uk/project/conservationtechnology/acoustic-monitoring
38
https://fieldworkfacility.com/projects/the-nest-project
39
http://internetoftrees.tech/
29
camera technology to help with bee conservation and identify when a swarm
might be about to move40.

Arup’s Nest project provided a type of housing for bees and insects.

British Land worked with Arup on a series of insect hotels and green roof
studies41 and smart beehive project like that from Pollenity42 have helped
people become better beekeepers. Rewilding practices in both public space
and private gardens are also on the up, contributing to more diversity in
both types of natural resources.

Keeping an eye on the diversity of a space includes endangered species as

well as more common ones. The work of companies like Arriba43 focuses on
building open source technologies for the conservation sector but closer to
home, UCL’s Nature Smart Cities focused on tracking bats on the Queen
Elizabeth Olympic Park. They built smart bat monitors (Echo Boxes) that work
like a “Shazam for bats”. The box, once installed on a lamppost or other
structure in the park captures the soundscape of its surroundings through an
ultrasonic microphone, then processes this data, turning it into an image
called a spectrogram. These are then scanned, identifying possible bat calls
and even a possible diversity of species on the site.

40
https://www.oracle.com/uk/corporate/pressrelease/ai-smart-hives-network-helps-conserving-
global-honey-bee-2018-10-16.html
41
https://www.britishland.com/sustainability/our-views/articles/2012/biodiversity-takes-root
42
https://pollenity.com/product/uhive/
43
https://blog.arribada.org/

30
 Bat monitors in the London Olympic Park built by UCL CASA

Not every solution is technological or connected. In some parts of the Queen

Elizabeth Olympic Park, for example, lower lighting was installed to protect
the natural habitat of some animals. This has the power of becoming a
solution that is rolled out to parks everywhere, especially in cities where
parks remain open at night but should be balanced with the need for safety.
Helping people request more light on demand or digitally could help city
officials assess the usage of those spaces too and their impact on animals
in the area.

Thought leaders you should follow

• Jeremy Rye Studio, landscape architect (jeremyrye.com)
• Alastair Davies, Shuttleworth Fellow from London Zoo
(blog.arribada.org)
• Nature Smart Cities (naturesmartcities.com)

31
Transport &
Signage

Dynamic LED display developed by design agency Breakfast NYC

Signage and wayfinding in public space hold a dual functionality in making

a space both legible and aiding safety. If you don’t have a good sense of
where you are heading to, you may not want to go there at all. This can be
expressed through signs that point in a direction or maps. The gold standard
in this area is the IV system44 by Mijkesenaar at Schipol Airport, which, with
its black Frutiger typeface on a yellow background cuts across its
environment and helps passengers at key moments find their way no matter
where they are going. As a general principle, the craft of good signage
takes a view on how much information to communicate at any given time in
a particular context (destination, time it would take to walk, number of
meters, etc).

44
https://uxdesign.cc/wayfinding-at-schiphol-some-design-considerations-behind-the-world-
famous-vi-system-and-what-29842b368252

32
The Legible London program45 in London Boroughs focused on maps which
promote walking and encourage a walking view of a neighbourhood, giving
people confidence they didn’t have to take other modes of transport, helping
relieve public transport usage for short distances for those able to walk.

The role of signage is distinct from advertising or temporary events based

information however the distinction is blurring and when it comes to the role
of new technologies, the two are often combined.

Screens which contain both directional information and advertisements have

sprung up in indoor malls, transport infrastructure and on the sides of
complex office buildings.

The work of Lancaster University researchers in providing bespoke content

to a network of signs46 is intriguing as the volume of passers-by is likely to
provide competing pieces of information. The idea of dynamic and relevant
surfaces was also explored by the now defunct UK design studio BERG47 in
their project ‘Media surfaces’ which used different e-paper solutions for
travellers to get relevant information about the journey they were about to
undertake. The idea that shared spaces can communicate bespoke pieces of
information is a complex one when most public space tries to address
as many people’s needs as possible but there are plenty of opportunities
for exploration.

Advertising or mapping isn’t the only use of these screens. Elevators in

Canary Wharf also include a screen with the status of various Underground
lines, helping people make a travel choice from within their office building.

Reversely, information that is present in the physical world doesn’t connect

up to maps and signage often enough. Currently, Google Maps does not
know when public construction works happen, it simply indicates there is
traffic. In the future, we can expect multiple physical objects to weigh in on
publicly accessible mapping systems and this may extend to digital maps
and signage. Construction materials and barriers may add information to a
city mapping system, which then helps cars reroute more effectively.

45
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/boroughs/legible-london
46
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/scc/about-us/news/public-displays-that-change-to-show-content-
tailored-for-you
47
http://berglondon.com/projects/media-surfaces-the-journey/

33
Thought leaders you should follow
• Stamen (stamen.com)
• Mapzen (Linux Foundation Project) (mapzen.com)
• Geovation (geovation.uk)
• Benchmark Initiative (benchmarkinitiative.com)

34
Accessibility

Fraunhofer’s system to help the blind using microchips connected to satellite networks.

One of the many challenges of the public realm is offering access to all, no
matter what their levels of ability in an environment that is rapidly becoming
augmented by technology. From dangling cables to charge electric vehicles
to e-bikes and scooters, the pavement of large cities is one of the least
accessible places for those with disabilities. These are not new problems, the
electrification of cities and advances in telecommunication started the
population of our streets with devices. It is however transforming rapidly and
for wheelchair users through to enabling access for blindness, tackling these
new problems is a challenge. Lack of common sense is hard to police.

A clear example of where Internet of Things technology is moving for

accessibility was the 201448 joint Transport for London and Future City
Catapult project to use Bluetooth technologies to offer indoor positional
information to someone with a visual impairment. Cities Unlocked, with the
additional parts of Microsoft, Guide Dogs and University College London,
included a headset someone might wear which connected with GPS,
Bluetooth beacons and wifi along a route between London and Reading.
With the corresponding mobile app, it provided the wearer with
48
https://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/project/cities-unlocked/

35
3D-soundscapes, augmenting reality to provide a richer understanding of
their surroundings. Cities Unlocked is a clear example of how the Internet
of Things is able to augment and enhance our public spaces.

Another example is a series of wearable devices that used hardware

connected to global satellite systems to help the blind navigate city streets.
Designed by Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) in the context
of an FP7 European funded project, this bespoke hardware won many
awards but has not been commercialised.49 Other solutions have moved into
the more commercial application space, such as BlindSquare, an app that
describes to someone what is around them50 via audio messages.

If we take this one step further and consider building voice assistants, such
as Alexa, into public spaces, we can imagine a future where a more ‘public’
version is enabled in the city and available for someone partially, or indeed
fully sighted, to use on top of their own devices - providing voice based
information in our public spaces.

This is, in a way, what the LinkNYC kiosks could have been. Started in New
York City and known in the UK as BT InLink, these on-street units offer free
Wi-Fi access, USB charger and emergency access with a touch of a button.
They are replacing telephone boxes and while likely to generate more
revenue than an analogue phone box, they are yet another addition to the
street for a blind person to contend with. One of the features being
developed51 is for the screen to act as a street side emergency signage but
this has not been deployed yet.

Thought leaders you should follow

• Alastair Sommerville, (acuitydesign.uk)
• Superflux, (superflux.in)52
• Open Inclusion, consultancy (openinclusion.com)

49
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232100201_A_Flexible_and_Portable_
Multiband_GNSS_front-end_System
50
https://www.blindsquare.com/
51
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/idoxWAM/doc/Other-2051879.pdf?extension=.pdf
&id=2051879&location=Volume2&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1
52
http://superflux.in/index.php/work/elastic-cities/#

36
Future trends
Not everything that counts can be
counted, and not everything that can be
counted counts.
Bruce Cameron

As we have highlighted throughout this

Little Book, with data gathering comes
great policy-making responsibilities.
Every city, local actor and citizen will
be working with a set of local values,
which will influence how the internet
of things is implemented, accepted
or shut down. The introduction of
Public display with the energy captured by a more network options with 5G53 and
solar panel on top of a building in Japan LoraWAN54 add to telecommunication
infrastructure and multiply the potential
for these complex dynamics.

Having more products connected to our information networks and to

ourselves also creates dependencies we are not necessarily able to predict
but thankfully, toolkits are available to enable leaders to reflect and
plan accordingly.

We will highlight here areas that leaders can think about in the coming years
and add to their strategic approaches as well as their risk registers.

53
https://www.businessinsider.com/5g-high-speed-internet-cellular-network-issues-switch-2019-4
54
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/temperature-senors-norfolk-roads-gritting-money-
save-1-5778802

37
1 Early-ish collaboration platforms
San Francisco has recently launched ‘Civic Technology Centre’ points to
respond to the growing need to build bridges between the city’s stakeholders
and technology companies. The problems that Uber have had with license
provision in London are one example of processes that bring policymakers
and technology companies to interact in expensive and public ways. Having
platforms where public servants, lawyers and government officials at all
levels can give feedback to scaling companies should enable better decision
making on the part of the provider and preparation on the part of each local
actor. This is different from FixMyStreet or SpaceHive as it is about an active
early engagement with companies, instead of necessarily funding new ideas
or only responding to problems as they are reported.

2 GDPR for the physical world

However weak the GDPR may be in terms of local enforcement, it has
enabled a large community to discuss issues of digital consent. It has also
increased the level of literacy around digital services and their use of
marketing tools. As surveillance tools are turned into marketing tools, we
can expect GDPR to move beyond digital borders and into the public realm.
What may initially be in-site terms and conditions may become a pan-
European approach to public space and how much information can be
gathered about the people who traverse it. It may also mean more
transparency around ownership of land, space and buildings. It will also help
citizens understand who owns the sensing hardware that surrounds them,
especially when the infrastructure isn’t owned in a typically top-down way
(eg. LoRaWAN masts). We also expect there to be more transparency
around small, lower power sensors and where they are, what data is being
gathered and how to ask for one’s own data to be removed.

3 Act local
There is much focus on inequality and whether it is human trafficking, slavery,
domestic abuse or drug networks, cities must enable citizens to report the
issues they identify in their own communities with the help of technology.
Whether it is the use of drones by citizen journalists or Hello Lamp Post to

38
help people signal a change in their neighbourhood anonymously, the tools
for reporting must become diverse and close to the problems they are
connected to.

4 Greener cities
Changes in the environment will continue to be monitored closely as the
effects of climate change start to disrupt bee populations, flowering seasons
and harvest patterns. This is an area that is likely to receive a lot of
technological attention and monitoring. Satellite imagery is already being
used to assess what the climate risk of an area is but we can expect public
space in cities to start to be ‘rated’ as ecologically prosperous or not.
Measuring how ‘green’ a city looks based on CCTV footage may be a
happier byproduct of millions of cameras in London. Tree planting
opportunities may be identified more easily using footfall counters in busy
areas, to ‘lighten’ the carbon load of busy streets. Camera technology may
be pointed at an area to measure the amount of light received and make
recommendations for plantings or rewilding projects.

5 Cash vs. cash-less

Libraries are places that may also see a return in popularity. Some even let
you know how much you’ve saved in Amazon purchases by choosing your
books there55.

Cashless interactions are not prevalent everywhere but they are starting to
affect the way in which services are delivered. Cash may also make a
comeback as the ultimate anonymous transaction. Local currency projects
like the Bristol and Brixton Pound encourage people to shop in their local
area. Will digital bank apps encourage people to do the same, geofencing
someone’s spending? Or rewarding them for shopping in a business which
is within a certain distance of home. Can a building ask for anonymous
donations via a swipe or tap of a card just like a busker does? Many non-
profits may use their window display or real estate to try these kinds of
engagement solutions.

55
http://www.openculture.com/2019/08/public-library-receipt.html

39
Conclusion
As our city lives continue to get busier and more pressured by larger and
ageing populations and amongst many issues, increasing pollution, the role
of technology will be of most importance in harnessing the most relevant
piece of information instead of gathering as much information as possible.
As public literacy around the use of cameras or sensors increases, cities can
expect either polarising conversations, vandalism, or adoption en masse -
this could shift either way. Currently, the public at large seems content with
home-based listening devices installed and monitoring of activities via their
smartphones. With CCTV being a given in the UK, the move towards facial
recognition at large and a complex set of monitoring capabilities in the
public realm is bound to attract much of the attention in the short term.

We shouldn’t however, abandon all technological implementation in the

public realm when some many needs still go unmet.

No city should expect a rollout to go smoothly without engaging with

citizens and hyper-local stakeholders. In many ways, the opportunities of
the future city are opportunities to develop literacy in its teams, an open
dialogue with technology firms and a willingness to experiment over long
periods with consent from all. The challenge is to use the IoT for the public
good while avoiding the Orwellian overtones of things and devices sensing
and listening into our public spaces - a notable challenge for the future of
public space.

40
Image credits
P.7 Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

P.12 Elliott Brown flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/

P.14 Steve Garfield flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/

P.15 Bleep Bleeps

P.17 BigBelly Bin

P.18 Renew London

P.20 Dr Duncan Smith, The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial

Analysis, University College London.

P.23 Oracle

P.24 Arup

P.25 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pseudonomad/45047862315/
in/pool-uclcasa/

P.26 Breakfast NYC

P.28 Fraunhofer IIS

P.30 Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

41
THE PETRAS NATIONAL
CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
FOR IoT SYSTEMS
CYBERSECURITY