Ministers have announced more than £5m in grants to help deliver innovations that aim to improve rail travel and help decarbonise the network.
The latest round of the First of a Kind 2022 competition – a partnership between the Department for Transport (DfT) and Innovate UK – saw 24 innovators receive up to £400,000 each.
Transport secretary Mark Harper said: ‘The UK has a long history of leading the way in railway innovation and the First of a Kind competition is getting the great brains of today to create the trains of tomorrow.
‘Through millions of pounds worth of government funding, we are breathing life into ideas that will revolutionise our railways and make them greener than ever before.
‘This is just the beginning and, as transport secretary, I am determined to support British innovation and create a cutting edge, green rail industry that delivers even more benefits for passengers and freight.’
Mike Biddle, executive director for net zero at Innovate UK, said: ‘The innovations funded through this competition will help to deliver a greener, lower-emissions railway carrying increasingly higher proportions of the UK’s freight.
This year’s winners include:
- Varamis (pictured), working with DHL and Fedex, is repurposing former passenger carriages and ‘putting rail right at the heart of the online shopping boom to create high-speed, non-letter delivery services’.
- Echion Technologies is developing batteries that will charge from overhead wires and use that charge to cross unelectrified section of track, describing what the DfT described as effectively creating ‘self-charging trains’.
- Thales Ground Transportation Systems has developed sensors that will detect people approaching tracks, pin down their location, and give an early warning to staff – 'lifesaving technology that will reduce disruption and could act as suicide intervention or even stop protestors getting on the tracks'.
Other winning projects include automatic systems that detect and stop track flooding; new electric drivetrains that replace polluting diesel engines; and new technology to instantly relay track information to improve rail safety.
Officials said that winners with a track record of success will have the opportunity to progress for further funding next year as projects move from concepts to realisation.
