Businesses around the UK have pitched their ideas for improving the passenger experience on the Transport for Wales network.
The eight start-ups have been working with Transport for Wales in the Innovation Lab to develop their ideas into products.
The “virtual demo day” saw three companies awarded a share of £30,000 to develop their ideas further.
Winning ideas included a new app designed to help customers navigate stations with real-time information about facilities and crowds, a personal passenger information system (PIS) and a smart parking solution which aims to minimise congestion and emissions.
Transport for Wales Rail Services Chief Executive Kevin Thomas opened the event and said he was “passionate about nurturing talent and giving people the chance to show there was a better way of doing things”.
He said: “As we navigate these strange times of Covid-19, innovation and new ideas have never been more important.
“To have worked with eight new organisations and see them develop has been inspiring. Now having three projects we will continue developing further to create a product for our customers shows the success of our Labs initiative.
“We’re here to serve our customers and we won’t do that well by just repeating what we did yesterday. We need to challenge the norms, disrupt the thinking and deliver something better.”
Adam Foster of Alt Labs said The Lab was “a genuine help for both TfW and the start-ups taking part”.
He said: “Over the course of the 12 week programme, 5 start-ups have been able to develop their ideas into final solutions that TfW Rail Services are now looking to implement across the business. The opportunities that the Lab provides for innovative companies are very real and this is evident by the great work that Cohort One has achieved.”
As many great services were developed, judging Cohort One proved to be a tough task. After all of the start-ups pitched their ideas, Michael Davies, Innovation and Insight Manager, confirmed the winners:
Brite Yellow Ltd was awarded £5000 to develop its app that aims to improve passenger experience by helping navigation across stations and provides real-time information about facilities and crowding.
Fredi Nonyelu from Brite Yellow Ltd said the programme had been “brilliant” and an excellent platform to showcase their innovation.
He said: “We are delighted to win and we share a passion with Transport for Wales to improve customer experiences from before and during their journeys.
“We look forward to the opportunity to provide enhanced information for passengers and railway station staff.”
Passage Way was awarded £10,000 to support the personal passenger information system, My Journey. The system aims to provide customers with up-to-date real-time information that includes delays, disruption, parking and bus availability.
Chris Johns from Passage Way described the Lab and Accelerator Programme as a “catalyst for innovation”.
He said: “The idea for the My Journey PPIS was ignited by brainstorming sessions with the TfW team. Having an open, honest discussion about the biggest challenges facing their organisation enabled us to look deeper into our own work and how it could be innovated to meet the needs of TfW customers.
“We’re looking forward to building on our conceptual work, to develop truly innovative tech with the flexibility to meet both existing and emerging customer experience challenges.”
CleverCiti was awarded £15,000 to implement its smart parking solution which aims to minimise congestion and emissions within cities.
Chris Heddle of CleverCiti described the Lab as “a rare opportunity” to gain insight into railway operations.
He said: “The Transport for Wales Lab was a great opportunity to get within an organisation and discover areas of pain that we could potential solve. The programme allowed us to think and innovate in a much more focused way as we had access not only to all of TfW staff but their customers. This is key to understanding why there is pain and meant we could adapt our offering to meet the exact needs of TfW and their customers. It was great to pitch as part of the Demo Day all be it virtually, but it is always great to promote Cleverciti’s products to a large audience. We are absolutely thrilled to be selected as winners and we can’t wait to get started and continue our partnership with Transport for Wales.”
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Responses
Very encouraged by the winning proposals.
Hope other operators follow the TfW innovation model.
As Ideas are being Pitched on Potentially Re-improving the Rail Network Across Wales….
How’s about Restoring & Resurrecting the old abandoned Railway line from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Trawsfynydd ?
That abandoned stretch of Railway Ought to be brought back into good use… As am extension of the Conwy Valley line.
Only A Suggestion.
How about TfW running a proper rail service in the first place – which is what they’re supposed to do?
Take the Heart of Wales line: potentially as good as the West Highland line but with an abysmal rail service of four very slow trains using a timetable from the days of delivering newspapers and mail to wayside halts with frequent breakdowns to the 150/153 units operating the line for the foreseeable future.
TfW and Network Rail would both like to abandon the line with its 1980s signalling and expensive running costs.
At the moment there isn’t a service south of Llanwrtyd because of problems with a bridge south of Pontarddulais and it will be eight weeks before the service resumes… One of the South Wales papers showed a photo of the problem: not a bridge strike as implied by TfW but damage to one of the longitudinal wooden members supporting the rails that has fallen apart and looks suspiciously like a lack of maintenance by Network Rail.
In the meantime the few people who want to use the line have to transfer to a socially distanced bus. But as hardly anybody uses the line, that won’t really matter…