UK: Eight technology companies have been selected to receive funding to develop concepts to improve the passenger experience and improve safety at stations. Three will then be selected to test their ideas for six months in the Station Innovation Zone at Bristol Temple Meads
The project is being run through the Connected Places Catapult innovation accelerator, in partnership with Network Rail and funded by Innovate UK.
The selected ideas fall into two categories.
Improving the interchange experience
- DataWharf is developing a journey support tool to help passengers understand stations, disruption and onward travel with personalised multilingual guidance to reduce anxiety and support those with additional needs;
- Katlas is creating a trusted travel wallet to help passengers and station teams co-ordinate real-time assistance when journeys change unexpectedly, by linking navigation data, hardware and verified handovers;
- Moonbility helps passengers at multimodal interchanges understand connected train and bus services; reducing confusion and improving confidence when disruptions affect onward journeys;
- Spoken Ink (trading as Whoosh) is building a station-based travel chatbot that will help passengers to navigate interchanges with clearer updates, personal guidance and reduced anxiety;
- XRAI and Ampetronic are developing AI-powered multilingual announcement systems to help passengers understand real-time platform changes and travel updates through instant translation, captions and accessible audio.
Station weather resilience
- Purple Transform will deliver SITYE, a unified operational intelligence platform that transforms CCTV, sensor and system data into real-time and predictive insights to forecast environmental risks, enable proactive interventions, reduce slip incidents and improve operational resilience;
- Quantum Risk Solutions is developing an edge-AI platform to help station managers foresee slip risks, deploy cleaning earlier and keep passengers safe without altering infrastructure;
- Trace Surveys is building a rugged multi-sensor device to predict and prevent condensation hazards while monitoring noise, vibration and air quality to enhance passenger safety, comfort and operational decisions.
Fourth cohort
The companies are the fourth cohort of the Station Innovation Zone programme, which creates an environment for SMEs to trial technologies with the potential to improve the passenger experience or enhance safety. Since 2023 the Station Innovation Zone has supported 25 firms to develop their ideas, with eight undertaking live trials at Bristol Temple Meads. This has led to three follow-on contracts and more than 180 follow-on conversations across Network Rail and the wider industry.
‘The Station Innovation Zone is all about bringing forward new ideas to benefit Network Rail and other rail organisations, whilst supporting high-potential innovators to accelerate towards commercialisation’, said Alan Peters, Rail Director at Connected Places Catapult. ‘Applications to take part in the latest round of the Station Innovation Zone did not disappoint: we attracted a range of high-quality innovators with an impressive array of solutions to address challenges faced by railway stations.’
