Metroflows

THE CHALLENGE

Peterborough’s com­mit­ment to become the UK’s first ever Cir­cu­lar City will be a chal­lenge in a num­ber of ways. One key hurdle is being able to under­stand the exist­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and zero waste ini­ti­at­ives which are already work­ing here, as well as see­ing the gaps in our know­ledge and the oppor­tun­it­ies which we could use to stim­u­late the growth of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy loc­ally.

THE SOLUTION

Met­ro­flows is a liv­ing sys­tems insight tool which builds visu­al­isa­tions of the resources flow­ing around urb­an eco­nom­ies. By trans­form­ing diverse data­sets into beau­ti­ful, inter­act­ive net­work visu­al­isa­tions we enable decision makers to dis­cov­er new insights.

With an open plat­form, loc­al gov­ern­ment, busi­nesses and com­munit­ies can add to and explore the visu­al­isa­tions togeth­er, under­stand their cur­rent loc­al eco­nomy, see their place with­in related net­works and explore dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os. Met­ro­flows will help Peter­bor­ough identi­fy key data black spots where stronger data gath­er­ing activ­it­ies or col­lab­or­a­tions could be developed to improve the util­ity of the mod­el. Over time, pro­gress can be seen toward the long term vis­ion of a strong shar­ing eco­nomy with­in a cir­cu­lar city.