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City of London eyeing up smart solutions to congestion following hackathon

The City of London Corporation’s increasingly tech-focused outlook continued this week after the centuries old body held its Hack the City hackathon over the weekend.

Developed in conjunction with City Centre and newmedia2.0, the programme invited teams from across London’s tech and creative community to develop solutions to the City of London’s congestion woes as part of a two-day hackathon event.

Utilising publicly accessible data, teams looked at ways to ease the pressure on the City’s roads and walkways, particularly in its Eastern Cluster where a project 10% growth by 2025 is expected to add further strain on air quality, road safety and public wellbeing in the area.

Solutions focused on improving the flow of people, goods and services were explored across the two-day event, with Harry Dobbs Design’s proposals to more smartly utilise public realm spaces on the weekends and evenings coming out the eventual winner.

The team’s plans included tactics to transform road surfaces into ‘memorable public spaces’ which would help to emphasise the Square Mile as a cultural and leisure destination outside of traditional City working hours.

Runners-up in the competition were a team from Skidmore, Owings & Merril and Klimaat, with data analyst Can Khoo, whose ‘The Flow’ system used computer modelling techniques to give up more street real estate to pedestrians.

Carolyn Dwyer, Director of the Built Environment at the City of London Corporation, described Harry Dobbs’ team’s vision as ‘inspired’ and provided a glimpse into the manner in which The City can accommodate the estimated increase of 50,000 extra workers per day plying their trade in the Square Mile over the next 30 years.

She said: “We would like to express our gratitude to all those who attended and contributed such high-quality work over the course of the weekend.

“We were particularly impressed with Harry’s presentation; their creative solution turns engineering into an art form. Importantly, it neatly reflects our ambition to grow the City as a cultural hub that reflects the inventive, inspirational people that make up the Square Mile. Harry Dobbs’ team captured that spirit brilliantly.”