SBRI Rail Demonstrations: First of a Kind 2020

Key Features

Businesses from the UK, EU or EEA can apply for a share of up to £9.4 million, including VAT, to develop demonstrators for sustainability, customer experience, operations or maintenance in the rail industry.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £9.4 million

Opens: 13th Jan 2020

Closes: 11th Mar 2020

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition and is open to organisations of all sizes from the UK, EU, or EEA.

The aim of the competition is to demonstrate innovations to stakeholders and railway customers in a representative railway environment.

Scope

Your project must create a highly interactive and innovative demonstrator. This should be in an environment where railway customers and industry representatives can witness the product as a compelling business proposition, for instance:

  • within a railway station
  • in rolling stock
  • on railway infrastructure
  • in the environment close to the railway

Innovate UK may also consider demonstrators in settings highly representative of these environments.

You must prove you have a well-developed innovation that delivers the expected outcomes when integrated in complex real-world railway applications. Innovate UK will fund integration and direct user testing. Your solution must be field-tested and ready for use with an end customer by the end of your project.

Your application must demonstrate potential benefits to passengers and customers, including:

  • why customers would buy the product
  • how the funding will help companies in the consortium grow and result in broader economic benefits
  • how you will obtain a clear route to market

Your project must:

  • gather evidence about integration challenges and explain how you will de-risk the integration
  • demonstrate to railway stakeholders and customers the commercial benefits of the solution
  • make taking up technologies less risky and faster
  • be pre-commercial
  • collect customer and performance feedback
  • provide a business case for using the solution in a commercial environment
  • consider the priorities of current and future franchises
  • provide relevant proofs, so your innovation can attract customers, get insurance, supply warranties and attract financing

Theme 1: environmental sustainability

This can include:

  • low-carbon freight
  • energy generation and storage solutions
  • low emission self-powered vehicles
  • sustainable non-traction energy solutions for stations and depots
  • improved air quality in enclosed spaces
  • sustainable and recyclable materials that reduce the whole-life carbon footprint
  • reduction of noise from diesel engines and wheels

Theme 2: customer experience

This can include:

  • improved access from stations to trains, considering the platform or train interface
  • optimising overall journey time within the railway environment, for example station access, parking facilities or ticket machines and interchange with other transport modes
  • improved travel accessibility for visible and non-visible disabilities
  • access to information for those without modern technology devices such as smart phones
  • good quality and predictable on-board and station connectivity
  • cost-effective and easy to implement improvements to passenger comfort on-board trains
  • analysing large volumes of customer feedback to drive improvements

Theme 3: optimised railway operations

This can include:

  • improved dwell time at stations
  • optimised freight planning
  • improved disruption recovery
  • timely and accurate information for front-line staff
  • technology to improve responses in the case of system failure
  • reduction of minor operational issues which can escalate into significant disruption
  • real-time decision-making assistance
  • using robotics to improve safety and security on the railway

Theme 4: optimised and cost-effective maintenance

This can include:

  • use of automation and robotics for maintenance and inspection decision-making or tasks
  • automated cleaning of railway assets, for example stations, trains or car parks
  • enabling on-site or local maintenance to rolling stock, rather than having to return to maintenance depots for faults arising during service
  • use of pattern-recognition technologies to automate inspections
  • improved reporting of failures and/or issues

Eligibility 

Lead Applicant –

You can work alone or collaborate with others as subcontractors.

To lead a project you:

  • can be an organisation of any size
  • must carry out your project work in the UK

Project Team –

Applicants are welcome from all sectors. Your project:

  • must involve an owner of railway assets (such as stations, rolling stock or infrastructure), an experienced railway organisation and a rail organisation that has the potential to become a customer (this can be the same organisation or 3 separate organisations)
  • must include a potential integration partner
  • must have a letter of support from a potential customer organisation
  • will ideally include an innovative start-up supply company that is already delivering in another sector
  • will ideally include an organisation with railway expertise, such as train operating companies, a freight operator, rolling stock manufacturers or operators and infrastructure owners

Innovate UK understand it may be a challenge to access railway assets and get permission to make modifications. You are expected to develop your own relationships with railway asset owners.

To aid you in building your consortium, it is recommended that you:

  • attend the competition briefing and consortium-building events
  • contact the Knowledge Transfer Network
  • contact railway organisations such as the Rail Industry Association

Funding Costs

There is up to £9.4 million, including VAT, has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Innovate UK expect to fund projects with total eligible costs between £100,000 and £400,000, including VAT.

Projects must plan to start by 1 July 2020 and can last no more than 9 months. All work must be completed by 31 March 2021. This completion date is fixed and non-negotiable.

Successful projects will be 100% funded. The funding is provided by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the competition process is managed by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.

Applications must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively for research and development (R&D) services.

For this competition, your application should focus on prototyping and field-testing your product or service in a representative railway environment.

For this competition R&D does not include:

  • commercial development activities such as quantity production
  • supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
  • integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

Exclusions

Innovate UK will not fund projects that:

  • are not likely to be successfully exploited by the rail industry to deliver benefits to rail or light-rail organisations and their customers
  • are not within a year of being ready for market
  • do not create a significant change in the level of innovation available in the rail industry
  • are not well developed technology or do not have low technical risk
  • have collaborations that cannot effectively deliver a demonstration within a railway environment
  • do not deliver an immersive innovative demonstrator in a railway context
  • do not feature a demonstration phase, offering the customer a chance to use the innovation and give feedback

Note that although software (also known as ‘applications’) for mobile devices may be in scope, only a limited number of these projects will be supported.

 

Further information and the application portal can be found here.