The aim of the competition is to deliver high maturity demonstrations of innovations to the UK railways. Your project must support the overarching principle for FOAK 2023: cost efficiency and increasing value for money.

Delivering financial sustainability is a strategic objective of the long term strategy for rail, and a pressing need for the sector given a drop in revenue and increasing costs in the light of inflation.

Your project, regardless of priority theme, must demonstrate how you will improve value for money, through increasing revenue or reducing costs whilst delivering positive outcomes in relation to your chosen priority theme.

This competition focuses on the following priority themes in relation to High Speed Rail System Installation:

Theme 1 – Slab Track Installation Processes

Theme 2 – Cable Troughing and Cable Laying

Theme 3 – Installation of ERTMS (European Railway Traffic Management System) related equipment

Theme 4 – Tunnel Fit Out Installations

Theme 5 – Electric Multi-Purpose Vehicles Deployment

You must select which scope theme you are applying for. If a project covers more than one theme, choose one where most of the work is being undertaken.

You must demonstrate how proven technologies can be integrated into an operational or construction railway environment for the first time as ‘First of a Kind’ demonstrations. This competition aims to support innovative suppliers in preparation for market readiness.

You must describe your projects potential to be successfully exploited in a railway environment. We encourage you to discuss regulations, policy and other requirements with potential customer organisations before you submit your application.

Your project must:

• show how the technology delivers cost efficiency and increasing value for money in high speed rail system installation
• 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
• include an evaluation phase, collecting data to support the cost benefit assessment of your proposed solution

You must provide evidence, showing how your innovation can attract customers, get insurance, supply warranties, and attract financing.

Your evidence must show:

• the technology works as designed when integrated into larger complex systems and delivers the expected outcomes
• the technology is accepted by and delivers benefits for high speed rail and the broader rail industry
• there is revenue potential for the innovation within a real commercial context
• the financing and business models can be delivered within a complex programme and consortium structure

You must demonstrate potential benefits to passengers and customers, including:

• why customers would buy the product
• how the funding will help applicants grow and result in broader economic benefits

We will give preference to applications which:

• help the innovation to be formally accepted for use on the railway, for example, through obtaining test certificates or product acceptance approvals
• offer innovations that can be used by multiple railway organisations

You must also include an evaluation activity to identify the cost and benefits of your deliverables, and to support commercial uptake of your product.

You must present at an industry briefing event to highlight the benefits you can bring to the railways.

Demonstration Event

Your project must create a highly interactive and innovative demonstrator in an operational or construction railway environment which will enable the most effective demonstration of the technology.

The most appropriate environment for this must be agreed with your integration partners, who will be well-placed to propose a representative environment.

This must be a railway environment where railway customers and industry representatives can witness the product as a compelling business proposition and should be as close to an operational or construction railway environment as possible.

The demonstration of your innovation is a key deliverable and must be included as part of your milestones.

You must work with your integration partners to achieve this, obtaining all required permissions and approvals. This must take the form of a launch event at yours or at your partner’s testing facilities, attended by a range of industry stakeholders with potential interest in your product.

Example environments can include:

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

This list is not exhaustive, however, and others may be more appropriate to demonstrate certain types of technology. We will consider demonstrators in settings highly representative of these environments.

Where required, the event may be online to access a wider selection of stakeholders, but in this case the events must be augmented by evidence of your deployment in a highly representative environment.

You should de-risk all aspects of this before bidding into this competition to ensure that it can be delivered to the requirements of the Department for Transport (DfT), High Speed Two (HS2) and Innovate UK.

Evaluation Activity

You must complete an evaluation activity at the end of the project, measuring data to anticipate the commercial impact that adoption of the innovation will have on the railway network.

You will need to submit your proposed evaluation activities and agree those with Innovate UK and HS2 at the start of your project.

This evaluation must be specific to your project and evaluate the immediate effectiveness of your technology and the project direct outputs and activities.

This can include the evaluation of the:

• increased capacity
• increased cost efficiency
• increased process efficiency
• improved data availability
• cost differences between new and old part
• increased service reliability and improvement in performance measures
• improved customer experience
• reduced number of closures or major incidents (absolute number)

This can be a measurement of the time taken to complete a task, or the costs incurred before and after adoption of the technology. Alternatively, the activity might take the form of a survey of railway staff to solicit feedback and to anticipate cost benefit. In all cases the collection of objective data where possible is preferred over the collection of subjective feedback.

This information should be used to inform the future business case for your innovation. Involvement of individuals with expertise in designing such evaluation activities will benefit your application.

You must summarise your findings in your End of Project report, the report template will be provided to you at the beginning of your project.

Contracts will be given to successful applicants.

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

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.

Specific themes

You must select one of the following scope themes. If a project covers more than one theme, choose the one in which most of the work is being undertaken:

Theme 1 – Slab Track Installation Processes

Innovation that has the potential to deliver efficiencies in slab track installation processes in a semi-automated way.

Your project must focus on:

• operational cost reduction
• logistic feeds
• time saving
• improving safety

Theme 2 – Cable Troughing and Cable Laying

Innovation that has the potential to improve cable troughing and cable laying efficiencies.

Your project must focus on:

• installation speed
• adaptability to obstacles
• cable jointing resources
• required on-site logistics efficiencies

Theme 3 – Installation of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) related equipment

Innovation that allows rail organisations to increase the pace of ERTMS installation including ETCS (European Train Control System) and GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway) related equipment, for example Balises and lineside cabling across their rail network.

Your project must focus on:

• improving installation speed
• accuracy of component position finding and setting
• ease of documentation
• high safety precautions

Theme 4 – Tunnel Fit Out Installations

Innovation that allows rail organisations to increase operations efficiencies across tunnel fit out installations.

Your project must focus on:

• improving installation speed
• transportation and inventory management
• automated positioning of components
• adaptability to different scenarios

Theme 5 – Electric Multi-Purpose Vehicles Deployment

Innovation that allows electric multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) to be deployed faster and run more efficiently, based on tractive power, capacity, speed, cost efficiency, environmental impact and safety.

Solutions should support the delivery and transportation of rail systems materials to the installation work fronts along the constructed route by means of rail and road.

Innovations should consider MPVs capability for hauling and ease of deployment of large bulk materials such as slab track panels, cable drums, lineside equipment and personel.

MPVs will preferably need to have working battery life of 8 hours or more with a view to fast re-charge times. Vehicles will need to be future proofed in line with latest technology industry thinking.

Research categories

Prototype development and evaluation

This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.

Projects we will not fund

We 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 24 months of being ready for market
• do not create a significant change in the level of innovation available in the rail industry
• are not already well developed technology at Rail Industry Readiness Level 5 or above, or do not have low technical risk
• cannot effectively deliver a demonstration within a representative railway environment as required
• do not feature a demonstration phase, offering potential customers a chance to see the innovation and give feedback
• do not include an evaluation phase, and a plan to collect information to inform a cost or benefit analysis
• have total eligible costs or project terms outside of the eligibility guidance
• would directly duplicate other UK government or EU funded initiatives you have already been funded to deliver
• are covered by existing commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solutions
• do not address how any potentially negative outcomes, such as on the environment or society, would be managed
• are covered by existing commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solutions

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