Technological advances, including low carbon, connected and
autonomous vehicles, will transform how people travel – and
significantly change how the UK’s transport network operates.
While our roads have been evolving, the biggest opportunities
will come from planning ahead longer term to anticipate and
respond to the requirements of future vehicles.
Working with Innovate UK, Highways
England has up to £20 million for UK organisations with
projects to change the way UK roads are designed, managed and
used.
The competition is being run via the Small Business Research
Initiative (SBRI).
Proving and testing an idea
There are 2 parallel competitions for:
- feasibility studies for ideas that are unproven and at a
low technology readiness
level
- feasibility projects that have already been proven and are at
a mid to high technology readiness level
In both competitions, projects should tackle the transport
challenges in Highways England’s Connecting the country:
planning for the longer term(pdf).
They must cover one of 6 core themes:
- design, construction and maintenance, including:
- greater automation of the design process
- greater automation of construction work, including the
inspection and management of assets
- adopting more modular construction techniques
- expanding and improving data collection
- creating a unified asset management system
- increasing the use of advanced materials that are
self-maintaining and extend the asset lifecycle
- connected and autonomous vehicles, such as maximising their
safety and capability and increasing uptake
- customer mobility, such as improving experiences for road
users and connections with other modes of transport
- energy and the environment, which covers electric and other
clean energy sources as well as the impacts that road networks
have on neighbouring environments
- operations, from customer service and traffic management, to
roadworks and incident and severe weather response
- air quality, particularly targeting oxides of nitrogen and
other air pollutants
A project can focus on different types of road or road use, and
be either location-specific or generic, so long as it is
applicable to Highways England’s strategic road
network.
Proving the feasibility of an idea
There is £8 million for the feasibility studies competition. This
is across 2 phases and will be split across the 6 themes.
The first phase has up to £2 million for up to 20 projects to
evidence and determine the feasibility of an idea.
In phase 2, the most promising projects from the first phase can
get funding to develop and evaluate a prototype. A total of £6
million will be available.
- the competition opens on 11 February 2019, and the deadline
for registrations is at midday on 1 May 2019
- organisations of any size are eligible to lead a project,
working alone or collaborating with others
- in phase 1, projects can last up to 2 months with total costs
of up to £75,000 including VAT. They can last up to 9 months and
have costs of up to £1 million including VAT in phase 2
- there will be a webinar briefing on 14 February for
applicants to find out more about the competition
Ready for further development
Up to £12 million is available for projects where the feasibility
has already been proven and are at the development phase.
They should be ready for imminent on-road testing and deployment,
having met necessary safety assurances.
The expectation is to fund 12 projects across the 6 themes.
- the competition opens on 11 February 2019, and the deadline
for registrations is at midday on 1 May 2019
- organisations of any size are eligible to lead a project,
working alone or collaborating with others
- projects are expected to start by September 2019 and last up
to 12 months
- total eligible project costs can be up to £1 million
including VAT
- there will be a webinar briefing on 14 February for
applicants to find out more about the competition
