Digital equity in motion: Using bin lorries to map connectivity in Manchester

by Becky McMillan, Digital Strategy Officer at Manchester City Council

How could Manchester’s network of bin lorries help us to better understand the strength of connectivity in our city?

As part of Manchester City Council’s Growth & Development directorate, our small Manchester’s Digital Strategy team has been proud to drive initiatives that use digital and technology to create a fairer future for everyone in our city. Our five-year Digital Strategy outlines an aspirational vision to become a world-leading digital city, supporting the long-term ambitions set out in the wider Our Manchester Strategy to make a positive difference to the lives of people in Manchester.

To us, this means championing a people-centric approach to digital. We believe that new applications of technology should be embedded with consideration for their impact on the world and people around us, to ensure that the projects we drive forward are aligned with the needs of people in our city. The values we believe in – inclusive innovation, equity and sustainability – are at the heart of everything we do.

In collaboration with Manchester’s incredible businesses, organisations and communities, we work collectively to ensure that everyone can take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital.

Occasionally, this involves strapping sensors to the back of bin lorries!

Our mobile capacity mapping project, delivered in partnership with street asset mapping company Inakalum, aims to build a clearer picture of the current connectivity landscape in Manchester.  By understanding which areas have the best connectivity, and which are in greater need of digital support, we can begin to develop solutions that address inequalities in network access.

To help us map connectivity throughout the city centre, Manchester’s fleet of bin lorries received a temporary upgrade. In collaboration with Manchester City Council’s waste disposal partners, Biffa, sensors capturing the speed of telecommunication operations were installed on the lorries as they carried out their usual routes. While refuse collectors carried out business as usual, their vehicles simultaneously gathered insights into Manchester’s connectivity gaps and ‘not-spots’. By creatively tapping into existing routes and resources, we could eliminate the need for dedicated survey vehicles and specialist, reducing the burden on the environment – and our budgets.  

To account for different use patterns, and to monitor how well connectivity performed over peak periods, mapping was carried out across several different days.  There’s no denying that Manchester looks very different on a Saturday night than it does in the early hours of a Monday morning. A phone call that connects easily at one time may prove to be a completely different challenge on another.

Even when a device displays a strong signal, sending and receiving messages can be a struggle. Stroll through Manchester City Centre on a busy weekend, and you’ll discover parts of the town where your phone or internet connection falters. While our city may be well-connected, network congestion and poor signal can prevent data from being transferred efficiently, leading to those dreaded message delivery failures.

In February, we’ll once again partner with Inakalum and Biffa as we kick off the second phase of our data mapping project across the wider Manchester area. Insights from the project’s initial phase have already uncovered areas of the city centre that consistently struggle to provide reliable, high-speed connectivity despite comprehensive network coverage.

Our hope is not only to improve the lives of residents by advocating for improvements to infrastructure in areas with poorer connection, but to become a more environmentally friendly, sustainable, and resilient city through the unnecessary construction of digital assets. Data is power, and the information from the project could extend to a range of services at Manchester City Council, improving future project planning and economic development.

Going forwards, we aim to better understand the intersection between digital inclusion and network access. While digital inclusion initiatives can offer a lifeline to underserved communities –creating opportunities to access the skills, knowledge and resources needed to navigate the online world – they will fall short of delivering meaningful impact if our underlying digital infrastructure fails to serve the connectivity needs of our city.

With the Public Switch Telephone Network due to close within the next two years, understanding mobile capacity shortfall is more important than ever. As older technology is retired, we have a responsibility to ensure our residents remain connected to the services and resources they rely upon. This means strengthening our understanding of telecommunications infrastructure to deliver targeted interventions in areas that would benefit from support.

By visualising the location, ownership, assets and speeds of telecommunication operations throughout the city, we ultimately aim to lay the right foundations to achieve digital equity and ensure affordable, world-class connectivity for everyone in Manchester.

If you’re anything like us, you’ll never look at bin lorries in the same way again!