How accelerating innovation is key to the future of the railways

Nicola Kissaglis has recently moved into the role of Head of Product at Unipart Rail with responsibility for accelerating the delivery of new Innovation into the sector. In this article she explains how accelerating innovation is key to the future of the railways

Over the past few years we have been aligning ourselves with the performance improvement challenges in the sector – especially around the reduced funding that we are all experiencing. With my new role I am focussed on accelerating the delivery of technology that helps our customers achieve this – essentially trying to do more with the same – or in some cases – reduced resource. 

We are focussed on customer needs in reducing costs, possessions times, increasing safety, driving efficiencies and cutting carbon.

There are two questions which may face you today:

• How do you access new technology to improve the performance of the railway? 
• How do you accelerate the adoption of your innovative product into the UK Railway?

Both questions have a fundamental issue at their core: is the technology fully tested, trialled, approved and fit for use?

Fortunately, for anyone asking these questions Unipart Rail has an answer. Our approach to all technology is to ensure that assurance is at the heart of every new product introduction and to ensure that it’s:

Transformational: it will deliver a positive change

Sustainable: the carbon impacts are minimised

Proven: thoroughly tested and approved by relevant bodies.

For SME Innovators

We have both the technical and engineering experience to be able to successfully steer innovations through the minefield of testing, finding sponsors, trials, development, specification-writing and the approvals process, as well as having the network, relationships and customer-base that enables us to get your innovation to the right people.

For Users

And because we have this experience, it means that when you use a technology from us, you know that it has had the most rigorous and comprehensive testing and is ready for use. Whether you’re responsible for traction & rolling stock, signalling, power or permanent way, we have the technology and the experience to deliver more for you.”

For more on how to engage with Unipart Rail and Nicola, visit https://updates.unipart.com/innovate-with-unipart-rail

Download article