Trial environment

Overview

Selecting and understanding the physical or digital environment is critical for the success of your trial. This section addresses key aspects, from the specific location and physical characteristics, infrastructure and equipment requirements, integration with existing systems, and considerations for installation and decommission. Addressing these considerations ensures that the trial accurately reflects the challenges and opportunities of the intended deployment setting.

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Questions and prompts

Within your trial plan, it will be useful to detail the following:

Location: what zone(s)/area(s) have you selected for the trial?

• Specify the solution's location and accessibility, defining who will be able to access it and who shouldn’t access it.

• Describe the key physical and geographic characteristics of the environment, and how this might impact the technology

• Consider any extraneous variables (such as climate, terrain, infrastructure, and personnel) that are out of the control of the trial and might impact the technology

• Evaluate how these physical aspects may influence the performance of your technology.

Infrastructure: what are the physical and digital requirements of the trial environment?

• Assess the solutions compatibility with existing infrastructure, systems and technologies.

• Plan for any necessary modifications to ensure smooth integration.

• Identify any additional infrastructure required for trial deployment – both physical and digital (e.g., power, connectivity, sensors, networks).

• Determine ownership of necessary infrastructure and seek permissions for access.

• Consider the logistics and cost of deploying and maintaining infrastructure.

Installation and decommission: are there any key factors that will impact installation and decommission of the solution?

• Detail what is needed for installation and decommission to happen successfully

• Determine the optimal installation time, accounting for stakeholders, users, and similar considerations.

• Identify the installation team, their security clearances, associated costs, and any required equipment.

• Consider limitations on resources, personnel, or infrastructure.

• Develop strategies to work within operational constraints.

if the solution needs to be installed within a live rail station environment, particularly gate-side, consider if it need to be installed overnight when there are no passengers in the station.

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Useful resources

The following resources may be useful in defining your trial environment:

• the Catapults's Real World Testbed Framework blogpost from the Homes for Healthy Ageing programme helps in defining a trial and a testbed.