Public Funding for Signol Limited

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the bottom line of the aviation sector, with IATA estimating that airlines will lose $84.3 billion in revenue this year. As flight volumes are likely to be lower than expected into the near-term future, economies of scale within the industry are unlikely to return to their previous level. The way back to profitability for aviation is through improved operational efficiency. We believe that this creates an opportunity for Signol to help shift the sector onto a lower carbon path. By taking advantage of a pressing need to find efficiencies in operation, we can ensure that these are delivered in a way which reduces emissions. Signol is a software platform which monitors performance against individual targets, providing personalised and targeted feedback on fuel-use behaviours to nudge airline pilots into greater fuel efficiency, reducing operating costs and carbon emissions. This platform already has the ability to make donations on the behalf of pilots meeting their targets as a form of prosocial motivating tool. In this project, we would investigate the possibility of building an extension to the product allowing for the investment of saved fuel budgets (up to pre-defined limits) in accredited carbon-offsetting schemes as a form of incentive, allowing pilots to observe their performance not only reducing emissions directly, but potentially in creating zero net carbon flights.

We deserve clean air. Air pollution contributes to global warming and environmental damage, harms our health, and reduces our quality of life. Environmental policymakers across Europe and the world are increasingly focusing on how to tackle these costs but have found progress hard to come by. The most significant contributors to air pollution play significant economic roles, and curtailing activity presents its own problems. We are proposing a simple solution which not only avoids imposing costs on economically significant industries, but which actively saves them money while cutting pollution. Some of the largest contributors to air pollution in our cities are vehicles. While some of these emissions are an inevitable consequence of doing business, many result from user inefficiencies such as leaving engines idling. We have experience in tackling these behavioural inefficiencies. In trials with Virgin Atlantic Airways, we were able to generate significant reductions in fuel consumption (15%) and self-reported job satisfaction (Gosnell et al., 2018) by offering pilots charitable incentives linked to their fuel consumption. Building upon this research, we are currently developing Signol - a software product which will provide pilots with personalised feedback and targets for fuel use. IDLE (Incentivising Drivers to Lessen Emissions) – our next product - will take a novel approach to tackling the fuel efficiency of large vehicles. IDLE will combine a cloud-based platform, telematic data analytics, econometrics, and behavioural science to deliver incentives and targets which work for the vehicle drivers, operatives, and fuel managers. We have already obtained the written support of two of the UK’s largest construction firms, and believe that we will quickly be able to demonstrate the value of our approach. Our initial analysis demonstrates significant value from this approach, which has not been realised yet. To this end, we are proposing an 8 week feasibility study with Highways England and two construction companies. This would explore issues around data transfer, access, and ownership, and would also allow us to examine which behaviours (like engine idling) we wish to change, the incentive structures currently offered to operators, the role of subcontractors, and which communication channels are available to us. At the end of the study, we intend to design a full randomised control trial for testing our new solution in the field.

"Airlines are responsible for a significant amount of carbon emissions globally. Airlines also spend vast amounts of money on fuel -- it is one of their largest operating expenses. Signol, our software as a service, harnesses cutting-edge behavioural science to tackle both these challenges. Building upon our team's unique behavioural research in aviation (Gosnell et al., 2018), we combine big data analytics and behavioural science to provide airline captains with refined performance feedback that motivates them to make fuel-efficient decisions when possible. What's more, Signol's cutting-edge behavioural science approach can make captains happier. Signol has the potential to improve firm profits, reduce pollution, and increase job satisfaction. In this project, we will test and refine the Signol platform with a major UK airline to begin scaling the project. We aim to position the UK as a leader in cloud-based analytics for professional staff and put it at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions in the aviation sector."