HOW TO USE – Use case Overview
The Manual for Smart Streets aims to provide practical guidance for authorities and as the manual develops it will be enhanced with pointers, links and case studies to provide further support. The intent is that, through the engagement of practitioners through TTF, the manual will be regularly updated so that it continues to provide up-to-date guidance despite the rapidly developing technological landscape it covers.
This manual is structured to support ‘The Delivery Lifecycle’, set out in the Introduction, and repositories of knowledge in Smart Streets Use cases, as introduced in the ‘Overview‘.
The approach taken in the development of this manual is to think of services as being delivered through interlinked systems, a system of systems approach to help users conceptualise the whole service. However, the overall system-of-systems is large and complex, and each Authority will have differences in their:
- Strategic priorities and desired requirements for rollout.
- Existing and legacy assets and systems that new technology needs to be integrated into.
It is therefore impracticable for this manual to define detailed solutions. This would be overly prescriptive, and would not allow for the flexibility and diversity of system design that authorities require when implementing a system that meets their needs effectively and takes advantage of the latest developments in the market.
Each use case introduces the subject and will provide information to support a more detailed investigation and research. The use cases by necessity do not provide definitive detailed designs. Rather their intention is to provide a meaningful and accessible overview to facilitate the development of a business case that enables specialised resources to be engaged and undertake the detailed design of the system.
Case studies will be provided to provide more specific and detailed exemplar guidance. If you’re a practitioner who has knowledge or capability that will support others in their projects, then we encourage you to engage us to share your experience by publishing a case study to support the manual.
‘The Delivery Lifecycle’ outlines the whole lifecycle of smart street initiatives, from conception, through procurement, its operational life and ending with decommissioning. The ‘Smart Streets Use Cases’ are structured to follow this lifecycle and aim to provide information to help overcome the challenges experienced through the lifecycle.
The use cases acknowledge that the rollout of technology starts with the formation of strategies and business cases, before the development of detailed designs. This process is supported by an outline of the objectives that could be supported by the service, and by providing logic maps in the use case. These logic maps provide a high-level illustration of the functions that may be delivered from the use case and how these map to the set of DfT green book appraisal impacts.
The technical guidelines support the development of detailed plans and specifications. The intent throughout is to encourage system thinking to address the wider implications and integration of the technology services. These systems should not be thought of as standalone, but as components in the wider operations of a smart street.
The approach taken is to illustrate a complete journey by the end-user, such as a member of the public, interacting with the system, providing information about the strategies that can be supported and the benefits as well as the details about technologies. Each Authority may consider how their needs can best be met and build a specification to meet their specific needs, using components from the journey to support their thinking.
Each use case has the following structure:
- Summary
- Background
- Objectives
- Business case support
- Technical guidelines
These sections progressively relate to ‘The Delivery Lifecycle’ steps as illustrated in the diagram below.
Relationship between Lifecycle steps and Use case sections.
This is addressed by providing the following content in each of the use case sections.
1. Summary
The summary section provides a high-level synopsis of the area covered by the use case and its purpose.
2. Background
The background section introduces the context of the use case. Discussing topics such as:
- Why the use case is important, and the needs it addresses.
- Current challenges faced by practitioners for the use case area.
- Current trends, including emerging developments in applied practices and technologies.
The content supports the engagement of those unfamiliar with the specifics of the use case, and the policies & services that could be supported.
The information includes the following support for delivery lifecycle steps:
- Stage 1: Relating initiatives to the vision they achieve.
- Stage 2: Understing the needs supported by the use case.
- Stage 3: Building an initial understanding of market readiness to deliver solutions.
3. Objectives
The objectives section sets out what the adoption of smart practices for the use case may achieve. Including:
- The high-level objectives that may be achieved.
- How the achievement of policies and duties are supported
The content is intended to help build an initial case that identifies what smart initiatives achieve, and how these relate to and support a wider set of duties and policy strategies.
The information includes the following support for delivery lifecycle steps:
- Stage 2: Detailing the objectives to be achieved and policy goals.
- Stage 3: Defining proposed objectives for assessing market readiness to deliver.
- Stage 4: Outlining the objectives to be achieved by strategies or planned initiatives.
4. Business case support
The business case support section provides information intended to help form business cases, including:
- Qualitative benefits
- Quantitative benefits
- An impact logic map, that illustrates and summarises the objectives and benefits that may be achieved through use case adoptions and how these map to DfT’s Transport Appraisal Guidance (TAG) impacts.
The information includes the following support for delivery lifecycle steps:
- Stage 4: Detailing the expected benefits to be delivered by proposals.
- Stage 5: Building an understanding of the requirements and design of the proposals.
- Stage 6: Shaping the key performance indicators for evaluating options to deliver the proposals.
5. Technical guidelines
The technical guidelines intend to support the development of detailed plans and specifications. This includes
- Actors: who need to be considered in the development of the system.
- Architecture and Data flows: showing how administrators and users interact and use the system, to help identify and develop the needs and specifications of the system.
- Standards: that are important and how these are used in the context of the use case.
- An overview of possible future developments for the area of the use case.
The information includes the following support for delivery lifecycle steps:
- Stage 5: Developing the design of the proposals, requirements/specifications of systems and services.
- Stages 6 to 9: Developing specifications and requirements for procurement processes
- Stages 10 onwards: Building an understanding of how the proposal would be implemented and operated throughout its lifespan. This may, for example, include the need to account for potential future developments in practices and available solutions.
Currently, this Manual has a library of eleven use cases as illustrated in the diagram below. This is not necessarily a complete or definitive set, and may change in the future to meet the needs of the community who engage with this Manual.
The intent is for each use case to provide a repository of knowledge for a particular application area. It is not practical to draw clean boundaries between the use cases and there are overlaps in content between the use cases, although we’ve tried to define the set of use cases in a way that minimises these overlaps. Similarly, and in keeping with the system-of-systems philosophy discussed elsewhere in this manual, the use cases often link to each other.
Library of use cases in this Manual
Also as shown in the diagram, the use cases may be considered as falling into three groups based on the role that the Authority typically performs:
- Authority Owned: use cases where the Authority is typically responsible for delivering a service to the end-user. Although the Authority may contract parts of these services to 3rd parties.
- Authority Managed: use cases where the Authority typically fulfils a sponsor role with a 3rd party is typically being responsible for delivering the services to the end-user.
- Authority Supported: use cases where services are typically delivered as a relationship between 3rd parties and end-users without the direct involvement of the Authority. However, the Authority may play a role to support and/or promote the rollout or development of the service.
The actual role the Authority plays may differ based on the local context. However, this approach to structuring the use cases has been used because the different role undertaken by the Authority, in turn, shapes different types of activities and outcomes that the Authority intend to deliver in the development of Smart Street services.
You may wish to look at ‘What are your objectives’ where there are tables mapping the use cases to the objectives and impacts they achieve.