Civation · Dynamic Commercial Assurance
DCARouteLab — Commercial underwriting engine for UK local authorities
A deterministic commercial reasoning engine for capital procurement.
An officer-owned discipline for testing whether a proposed route, price model, risk allocation and affordability treatment form a transaction the authority can reasonably take to market, fund and operate — before commitment.
~6 min walkthrough · no sign-in · data stays in your browser
White paper · Open access
Read the full DCA RouteLab white paper — free on Zenodo, with a citable DOI for board papers and committee references.
doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20757323
What the output looks like
Three projects, three controlling lenses
Indicative excerpts from the Commercial Reasoning Canvas. The engine names which commercialisation tree governs the recommendation — and why.
£18m leisure centre refurbishment
"Priceability is the controlling lens. One-stage fixed-price exposes the authority to qualification and risk-premium because design and survey maturity are below the threshold the market needs to price cleanly."
£6m housing retrofit framework call-off
"Marketability controls: lot health and supplier appetite drive the outcome. Funding deadline removes optionality, so downside protection (indexation cap, parent guarantee) is where reshaping has to happen."
£42m highways target-cost programme
"Recommendation quality is the controlling lens. Alliancing is structurally governance-heavy; without evidenced internal capability the recommendation does not survive challenge on commercial grounds."
No AI · No black box
Deterministic by design
Rules V1 · Visible · Explainable
Civation is not procurement automation, legal advice or financial approval. It is a transparent, rule-based diagnostic designed to support officer judgement by making key assumptions, warning signs and residual exposure more visible earlier in the process.
It is deliberately deterministic: no AI, no black-box scoring and no hidden model. The rules are visible, the prompts are explainable, and the user’s project data is saved locally in their own browser.
Better-shaped public transactions before scarce public money is committed.
Sequence 01—03
How the engine reasons
Capture
Project facts, the decision being requested, twelve commercial conditions and how well-evidenced each rating is. Assumptions are flagged as assumptions.
Reason
The engine identifies which of the seven commercialisation trees controls the decision, and why — naming the lens, the trigger and the residual exposure.
Record
Compare route, price and risk choices side by side. The officer call, the evidence relied on and the residual exposure are logged for audit.