The Government has today made £7.6m available for cutting edge
technology that will help transform rail travel.
Rail Minister, , has officially announced this
year’s First of Kind competition, which invites bids from
companies specialising in innovative ways to modernise the
railways.
In partnership with Innovate UK, this year's competition will
award up to £7.6m to projects creating cutting-edge ideas which
are striving towards transforming rail travel for passengers and
decarbonising the network.
The competition officially opens to applicants on
20th April and closes on
8th June, with bids welcome from organisations of
all sizes for projects creating a greener, more cost-effective
and passenger focused railway. The year’s competition is
focussing on technologies which improve the industry’s cost
efficiency and network performance to support a more reliable
railway for passengers and improving rail freight.
The Rail Minister, said:
“I am incredibly excited to launch the sixth round of our First
of a Kind competition. In partnership with Innovate UK, we have
already invested £35.4 million into over 100 ground-breaking
projects.
“We’ve seen cutting edge technologies such as HydroFLEX
developed, the first ever trial of a hydrogen-powered train on
the UK mainline, and software improving accessibility such as the
Hearing Enhanced Audio Relay app.
“As part of our Plan for Rail it’s key we continue breathing life
into new ideas and supporting innovation and design to deliver
greener rail journeys and transform rail travel for all
passengers.”
Last year saw 33 innovators receive grants of up to £400,000.
The First of a Kind fund has helped trial and launch over 100
projects which are promoting greener railways, improving
passengers’ rail experience and accessibility on the transport
network, and helping the railway to be more cost-effective. Some
of these projects include:
-
HydroFLEX - The
first mainline trial of a hydrogen train in the UK with
Birmingham University’s HydroFLEX project
-
Window seater -
An innovative app, connecting rail travellers to the world
outside their window with geolocated audio stories along the
railway
-
Hearing Enhanced Audio
Relay (HEAR) - HEAR is an affordable software
supporting hearing impaired passengers which automatically
broadcasts audio announcements to passengers' own devices.
