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ThinkingConnected Places Summit 2026: why true infrastructure innovation must be human-centred
The Connected Places Summit took place in March 2026, bringing together delegates and speakers to discuss the future of transport and infrastructure. With £725 billion of public infrastructure investment committed over the next 10 years, this scale of investment requires new approaches to avoid delivering less for more.
Mima’s Head of Experience Design and Sustainability, Lisa Baker, and Senior Accessibility & Inclusive Design Consultant, Luke Evens, visited the two day event, drawing key learnings, including a core takeaway - innovation is no longer just a ‘discretionary add-on’ but a value amplifier. However for this innovation to truly scale and succeed, it must be deeply rooted in human-centred design.
Joining forces matters - innovation is a team game
The digital and policy glue: AI, standards, and coordination
Fragmentation remains the greatest barrier to progress. Currently road, rail, maritime and aviation operate in silos despite the growing need for integrated multimodal systems. As highlighted by Patricia Thornley (Chief Scientific Advisor, Department for Transport) and Andrew Carter (Chief Executive of Centre for Cities), future transport must be approached as an interconnected system supported by aligned policy, data interoperability and shared infrastructure. This extends beyond transport into energy, digital and environmental systems, positioning innovation challenges as inherently cross sector. The insight is that meaningful scale will only be achieved through coordination across institutional and disciplinary boundaries.
Andy Lord (Commissioner, TfL) illustrated this through rail signalling. The UK’s fragmentation isn’t just a technical hurdle; it’s a regulatory and strategic one. A common national signalling standard, much like those in Europe or the automated systems in Sydney and Tokyo, is the prerequisite for the automation required to remove human error and increase safety. The real opportunity is a shared national approach to signalling, a systems-level intervention that unlocks gains across the whole network rather than line by line.
The summit clearly framed AI as a tool to augment human decision-making, not replace it. While caution was expressed around reliability and the risks of AI hallucination, reinforcing the need for human oversight, the value lies in simulation and predictive maintenance - reducing friction, accelerating processes and enabling experimentation, particularly in complex systems where physical testing is costly or risky.
TfL is already deploying AI with CCTV to detect and respond to safety incidents faster, and is most excited about its potential at the platform-train interface, with an ambition of zero fatalities on the network by 2041. He also highlighted AI’s application for predictive maintenance and escalator safety monitoring, floating the idea of working with mobile operators to push contextual nudges, prompting passengers to pocket their phones as they step onto an escalator or cross a road, illustrating how AI-enabled behavioural interventions could reduce preventable accidents at scale.
Inclusion as a catalyst, not a constraint
The most effective innovation doesn’t start with tech; it starts with a person. Discussions with the RNIB, Google, and the Motability Foundation reinforced a radical shift: disability drives innovation. When we design for complex access requirements, we create more intuitive systems for everyone.
Discussions on the future of transport emphasised a shift from car centric to people centric design (Marc Rozendal, CEO of EIT Urban Mobility). Active travel, shared mobility and multimodal access were framed as critical to achieving decarbonisation and healthier communities, yet tensions remain in rural areas where car dependency persists due to limited alternatives. The concept of designing for access rather than speed signals a reframing of mobility goals, prioritising inclusivity and proximity over efficiency alone.
A key insight was that behaviour change is inseparable from infrastructure design, requiring coordinated investment and policy alignment to create viable alternatives to private car use. How we power tomorrow's vehicles with clean energy to tackle transport-related emissions was a big topic for day 2, thinking about how AI can inform and help shape the innovation needed to make this a reality. The conversations underscored a vital reminder though: as we move towards transformations of our transport infrastructure, the success truly hinges on making sure that diverse perspectives and experiences of the people who actually use these systems are at the centre of our thinking. At Mima, we are excited to be part of these conversations, to help deliver inclusive transport system innovations.
Moving beyond tokenistic consultation toward shared decision-making with those who have lived experience is essential. RNIB and Motability Foundation emphasised that accessibility is not a constraint but a catalyst for innovation. Their recent collaborative Future Journeys project serves as a prime example of how accessibility acts as a source of insight rather than a checklist requirement.
Breaking the pilot cycle: solving for scale and systemic value
Innovation is currently trapped in a "pilot cycle." Erika Lewis (CEO of CPC) reframed innovation as a value amplifier where even marginal reallocations of spend can unlock massive societal returns. The challenge is no longer "proof of value" but systemic adoption.
Erika Lewis (CEO of CPC) - “even a marginal reallocation of infrastructure spend can unlock disproportionate economic and societal returns including job creation, productivity gains and sustainability outcomes.”
The examples shared from nature metrics to assistive AI tools such as Hello Lamp Post and robotic inspection systems demonstrate that innovation is already delivering measurable impact across biodiversity, accessibility and operational efficiency. Key takeaway was that the challenge is no longer proof of value but replication and scaling, moving from isolated case studies to systemic adoption across transport infrastructure.
Across panels and audience questions there was strong alignment that the primary barriers are structural rather than technical. Procurement processes consistently emerged as a blocker, often privileging cost certainty over long term value and inadvertently excluding small and medium enterprises. The technology readiness level framework was described as both necessary and constraining, with businesses forced to repeatedly revalidate solutions when moving across contexts, creating friction in the journey from minimum viable product to deployment. This reinforces the persistence of the so-called ‘valley of death’, particularly in safety critical and highly regulated sectors. Innovation is not failing due to lack of ideas but due to misaligned systems that reset progress and slow momentum.
A critical tension identified was the over proliferation of pilots without pathways to scale. The emphasis from CPC leadership was on shortening the distance between idea and implementation, focusing on adoption of proven solutions rather than continuous experimentation. Mechanisms such as testbeds, innovation passports and cross sector collaboration were positioned as ways to enable this transition. The insight is that the future of innovation in transport depends less on generating new ideas and more on embedding and scaling those that already work.
Bridging the gap - long term resilience and regional equity
True human-centred design considers the local context. Data from the Centre for Cities shows a heavy concentration of investment in London, leaving rural areas dependent on cars. Innovation must not be an urban luxury. Whether it is the Cardiff Capital Region’s evidence-led investment or TfL’s focus on climate resilience (such as sustainable road drainage), the goal is the same: ensuring that infrastructure is a foundational enabler of social participation for all geographies and future generations.
Without deliberate redistribution and locally grounded strategies, innovation driven growth risks reinforcing existing inequalities. A recurring discussion point was innovation as a team endeavour requiring collaboration between government, industry and communities. CPC was framed as a neutral convener capable of enabling this collaboration through testbeds, funding mechanisms such as the TRIG (Transport Research and Innovation Grants) and programmes like the HS2 Accelerator which demonstrated tangible efficiency gains through tools such as artificial intelligence driven verification. The proposed concept of innovation passports emerged as a critical intervention, enabling solutions to be validated once and deployed across contexts without repeated testing. The insight is that institutional mechanisms that reduce duplication and enable trust are essential to accelerating adoption.
Summary - a coherent vision for 2040
The vision for 2040 is clear: seamless multimodal journeys, greener systems, and zero fatalities. Achieving this requires more than just funding; it requires the alignment of policy, technology, and human experience. This vision is underpinned by principles of inclusivity, sustainability and connectivity, with transport recognised as a foundational enabler of economic opportunity and social participation. The insight is that achieving this future requires aligning innovation, policy and investment around a coherent and human centred vision of place.
At Mima, we see the gaps between these silos. We can act as the glue that binds these complex challenges together. By blending our core expertise in human factors, experience design, accessibility & inclusion and wayfinding, we can help partners navigate innovation from pilot to scale, fragmentation to integrated systems.
Written by:
Luke Evens
Senior Accessibility and Inclusive Design Consultant
Luke is a dynamic and imaginative NRAC-accredited inclusive design specialist who champions usable, welcoming spaces designed for the diverse communities we live amongst. He has advised on global projects across the aviation, education, rail, public realm and mixed-use sectors. Luke is IAAP CPACC certified, sits on the Network Rail BEAP, and serves as a Civic Trust Awards Universal Design Assessor.
Lisa Baker
Head of Experience Design & Sustainability
Lisa is a Chartered Human Factors Specialist with 18 years of experience across various industries, including healthcare, transport, culture and heritage. Lisa specialises in bridging human factors and service design to create innovative and sustainable customer services and experiences, grounded in evidence.