Lab by Transport for Wales to showcase innovation and tech talent

“Lab by Transport for Wales” sees business innovators from across the Wales & Borders region develop their ideas to improve customers experience on the railway.

Eight start-up companies were given dedicated mentoring by business experts at a state-of-the art facility in Newport to develop their products, ideas and innovations.

The virtual demo day on Monday, 29 June will feature some of the best and brightest tech talent from Wales and the rest of the UK and give a first look at some of the innovations that will be coming to Transport for Wales Rail Services.

The 12-week programme was completed prior to Covid-19 and was set to have a live demo day to showcase the state-of-the-art products developed in Cohort One. The demo day will now be held virtually on YouTube on 29th June at 1:30pm.

The innovative ideas include transforming kiosks and screens into real-time transport and digital information signs, and demonstrating how the railway can promote carbon reduction and promote active travel through rewards to customers.

Video presentations pitching the final products will now be shared from all eight of the early/mid-stage start-up companies along with the opportunity to ask questions and to learn more. The demo day will inspire innovation within businesses and will offer an insight into some of the cutting-edge developments coming to the Wales & Borders rail network.

Kevin Thomas, Transport for Wales Rail Services CEO said: “Our industry needs innovation and to nurture new talent and ideas to deliver an even better experience for customers.

“The wide scope of our operations creates opportunities to work with hungry and innovative start-up businesses and SMEs giving them a chance to showcase what they can do, help solve problems and improve the transport experience.

“The Labs initiative is rooted in our KeolisAmey values so we are excited to bring it here to Wales and to work in partnership with TfW, supporting new organisations to get involved and to work with us to deliver TfW’s ambitious vision for transport in Wales and Border areas.”

In the true spirit of innovation, Covid-19 will not get in the way as we take the showcase event online.

Lab by Transport for Wales has now opened applications for Cohort Two and innovators can find out more at www.tfwlab.wales

The companies involved in Cohort One and demonstrating their innovations are:

Brite Yellow Limited – Provide Indoor Mapping, Wayfinding, and Asset Management solutions for transport operators that want to create intelligent spaces to improve user experience and unlock new revenue through Augmented and Virtual Reality.

Smart Bench – Aims to implement smart public seating benches to the rail network, subsequently improving environments in around stations and depots. This project looks to enhance customer and staff experience with the provision of services including device and smartphone charging, Wi-Fi, LCD display information and sensor information that the operators can use to improve service.

Cleverciti – Manufacturers of overhead smart parking sensors. Cleverciti brings together all aspects of smart parking management technology in one integrated system – from overhead sensors to integrated mobile apps, management software and analytics.

Big Lemon – Aims to build and deploy an end to end consumer platform that simplifies and informs passengers about their full rail experience. Specifically focusses on Carbon offsetting and active travel rewards.

Linguaskin – Have developed through the accelerator a program that assesses how accessibility a website is and how many issues there are for people with accessibility needs but then it is also able to correct these issues automatically saving time and costs.

Realtime Knowledge – An innovative digital platform, made up of workflow management and data capture tools that focuses on operational safety & security checks and inspections. In addition, the Realtimeknowledge.com platform also offers a groundbreaking suite of customer feedback tools.

Hiperview – A customer satisfaction platform to provide instant customer feedback analysis through digital surveys and allow us to map a journey and where issues are caused.

PassageWay – Transforms connected totems, kiosks and screens into real-time transport and digital wayfinding signs. PassageWay signs display local multi-modal mobility information with real-time updates, enabling operators to reach out and push their information to potential new customers.

Photo credit: Transport for Wales