Technology helping us go greener

BT's research foresight manager Robin Mannings explores how information technology can be used to support sustainability and the efficient management of scarce resources in transport and other key infrastructures.

Sustainability and resource management are key issues that will shape the future. But of all the sectors in the economy, transport is the one where these issues are most immediate.

To what extent can future technologies help with realistic solutions? And can the digital networked economy play a part? BT believes so.

Information communications technology (ICT) can be a major enabler of "greenness" and new sorts of information "webs" that could be described as "green webs". These networks will manage new national infrastructures concerned with the more efficient management of scarce resources such as travel, transport, energy, water supply, recycling and industry supply chains.

Technology enabling flexible working

The most obvious green change that ICT can already largely deliver is to make geography history, using services such as teleconferencing in place of travel. As computing, bandwidth and display technology improves, videoconferencing can become more effective, easier to use and more popular.

Travel will never be totally eliminated, but substitution of travel has an important part to play in conserving limited resource.

Relieving the pressure on congested networks

The implications for transport organisations are clear: flexible working implies that the daily commute can be a thing of the past, or at least the rush hour can be staggered. Widespread broadband internet, secure intranets, efficient mobile devices and increasing prevalence of wi-fi hotspots on the move is decoupling "what" is done from "where" it is done.

Real-time information improving travel

The digital networked economy can also allow travel to become more flexible, delivering personalised travel advice in real-time. As the semantic web gradually puts more and more human and machine-readable information into the databases that underpin the worldwide web, then gradually artificial intelligence can be used to interpret this information. And as the digital networked economy embraces open standards, this information will be more easily delivered to consumers. For transport companies, this promises to cut costs and improve the experience of travel.

Information networks providing better management of scarce resource

In the future, all domestic and commercial environments will be covered with wireless sensors which will help intelligent software manage energy resources better. Perhaps a part of this will concern transportation demand management. Current plans for road tolling and congestion charging are looking in a narrow sense at sharing the scarce road resources more efficiently by using economic incentives linked to electronic payment systems.

Climate change is already having an impact on water supply, removal and treatment. Real-time information supplied by wireless sensors is being used to monitor the environment. In the future, weather, environmental and water sensing will connect to create an information web that not only concerns efficient resource control, but also has an important public safety aspect as more extreme weather is experienced.

The information age has only just started

Everything mentioned so far is highly likely and will happen sooner rather than later. But what of the longer term? The digital networked economy concerns what we call the "information age". Throughout history, humanity has passed from age to age - the Neolithic Age, the Industrial Age and so on.

The information age still has a long way to go and will be propelled forwards by revolutions in biotechnology, nanotechnology and cognitive science (artificial intelligence). It will be the convergence of nanotech, biotech, infotech and cognition that sets the future economic agenda and helps solve some of the problems we see today - oil prices soaring, carbon emissions rising and chronic world poverty.

What is pertinent about these ages is that their rate of change is increasing. Simply put, there has been more change in the last 20 years than in the last 100 years.

Changing the way resources are consumed

What could this future look like? Electric vehicles will have new types of battery based on nanotechnology. Highly localised production of food and manufactured goods will be possible with new generations of robotic machines. These will make extended supply chains, with long distance ships, aircraft and trucks, a thing of the past.

The digital networked economy is critical in improving how this resource is managed and maintained. For example, new generations of intelligent networked robots will start to replace humans, reduce costs and increase safety in operations within this field. Engineers can then manage plants remotely.

These green webs of information are therefore set to underpin many future activities and they rely on good quality communications and reliable computing. As part of this, the transport industry is set to go through a paradigm shift through its use of information technology. What are the implications?

BT's transport sector specialist Nick Guite said: "Across the world, the transport industry is already embarking on projects that will have a major impact on how travel will be perceived in the future. And in almost every case, it is information technology that enables positive change."