Wednesday the 14th of June saw Rail Minister Huw Merriman launch this year’s First of a Kind competition which is now in its seventh year.

The £5.3 million Department for Transport-funded contest aims to discover companies offering cutting-edge innovations in technology such as:

• Improved customer experience
• More reliable rail services
• Cost efficiency
• Increasing value for money
• Innovations which improve High-Speed Rail Systems Installation

This year’s contest has also seen a first with a partnership formed with HS2 Ltd which is offering £1 million of funding available to support technology which will aid the vast project’s ability to reduce costs or speed up High-Speed Rail Systems Installations.

Rail Minister Huw Merriman said:“This is an incredible opportunity not just for businesses but for the entire rail industry. Every year this competition brings together the best and the brightest whose talent and ingenuity helps to solve problems we’re facing and drive our railways forward.”

“This year we’ll be bringing even more trailblazing projects to life by funding ideas which benefit the passenger, encourage efficiency and transform our rail network for the better.”

An array of contemporary projects have been funded via the First of a Kind competition over the past six years with a total investment of around £50 million made in projects which bring improvements to the rail industry, including:

• Seat Frog’s Train Swap: This innovative product has seen eight rail operators utilise the facility which offers passengers the opportunity to swap train tickets without the need to purchase new ones alongside offering the chance to bid for last-minute first-class upgrades.
• Hack Partners’ Hubble technology: This impressive technology sees train-mounted cameras installed which use train-mounted cameras to identify and address line-side maintenance issues such as faults with overhead lines. The innovative project has seen both reductions in delays to services and the cost of repairs.
• Technology by Transreport: This accessible technology supports passengers with disabilities, providing them with the ability to quickly and easily request assistance whilst travelling alongside keeping them up to date regarding any disruptions to their journeys.

Some winning projects are still in the development stage and will see commercial activation in the coming years, including:

• The University of Birmingham’s project to develop hydrogen-powered trains which will be vital in decarbonising railways in order for the UK to achieve net zero.

Two winners from the First of a Kind 2022 competition including a project to simplify charging train batteries and another which aims to introduce the use of kinetic energy to reduce diesel train emissions have seen further funding allotted in order to move them to a secondary stage of testing so that they can achieve commercial usage.

Both of the key innovations have seen around £1.5 million of extra funding made available as they offer an ability to support the ‘low emissions and a greener railway’ theme.