In late-October 2017, the government announced the availability of £3.5m in funding for existing innovations that are already in use elsewhere and that can be applied to the rail industry. The fund, from the Department for Transport and administered by Innovate UK, aims to make improvements to rail travel like creating more space in carriages, offering better assistance to passengers regardless of their needs, and to improve railway efficiency and punctuality.
Of the fund, Paul Maynard, Rail Minister, said:
The aim of government, train operators and infrastructure managers is to put passengers at the heart of everything we do. If we can help fund development of these inventive and ground-breaking ideas then this will help support the biggest modernisation programme in rail since the Victorian era.
Source: First of a Kind competition: transform tomorrow’s train journeys – GOV.UK
