Project Summary

GapFinder leverages the power of geospatial intelligence, AI, and satellites to assist decision-makers, planning specialists, companies, and the public in reducing carbon emissions. The project aims to engage with crucial customer segments and launch two pilot initiatives in both urban and rural settings. Through the development and testing of interactive prototypes, GapFinder seeks to provide site search, network optimisation, carbon reduction, and monitoring solutions powered by AI and satellite data. The ultimate goal is to create a more sustainable and eco-friendly future by enabling effective carbon emissions management.

Project Achievements

The project focused on progressing the Technology Readiness Level from concept to validation in three different sites in England. The main achievements were creating geointelligence models and focused user-centric interfaces to easily determine prioritisation areas for infrastructure and public health improvements. Highlights of the project include creating automated geospatial models to interpret satellite imagery for decarbonisation purposes, collaborating with local authorities and government agencies, establishing partnerships with companies with a UK and global reach in over 60 countries to support the adoption and expansion of GapFinder and defining and applying a go-to-market strategy aligned with the upcoming regulations.

Conclusions

Decarbonising transport is challenging, but it is important. Decarbonising must consider multiple aspects: socio-economic, environmental, technical, public health and planning context. The project produced three pilots in rural and urban setting, proving the concept that GapFinder can be used in multiple settings and for a variety of users and use cases. Key learnings achieved during the project were that: (1) making insights quantifiable is key, and (2) continuous engagement to make the tool intuitive for all relevant users is at least as important as developing the tech behind it and generating actionable insights.

Next Steps

The next steps are: (1) expanding with more pilots throughout UK and (2) securing funding and contracts with early adopters from the private and public sector. We already signed MoUs with major companies from AEC and sustainability sector to get GapFinder to the market and expand the range of calibrations relevant to the technical evidence base and monitoring required in urban and transport planning. We already have interested commercial customers, working on calibrating GapFinder for their specific geographies and use cases. We are aiming for six to seven-figure further funding to increase the TRL, secure IP and new tech and sales hires as wellas match funding for innovation projects supported by InnovateUK and the ESA. The TRIG programme has been essential in developing our technology and creating a strong business case for a self-service SaaS platform that once adopted can free up to 80% of the time spend by planners on analysis and contribute to reducing socio-economic costs caused by the transport system, currently estimated at £49,9Bn/yr in UK alone.