The government’s initiative to support innovations in the rail industry is not doing enough to take the projects to market, a new report has concluded.
Cities, infrastructure and transport consultancy Steer has produced a report for the Department for Transport to assess the work of its First Of A Kind (FOAK) competition, which was introduced in 2017.
The short term aim of FOAK is to provide funding to innovative rail projects to help them through Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), a stage in the process often known as the ‘valley of death’ or the innovation gap as the project teams struggle to convince founders of its future potential and secure a procurement contract. By helping innovators across this gap, the DfT hopes to accelerate innovation in the UK rail sector and enable technologies to be readily and efficiently integrated in the railway system.
Six rounds of the FOAK competition have taken place with a seventh launched in summer 2021.
Steer assessed the first three rounds of the competition, which took place between 2017 and 2019. The consultancy captured feedback through online surveys and stakeholder interviews before analysing key information and the delivery of the findings.
The report confirms that FOAK adds value and supports participants to overcome traditional obstacles and push through TRL. It also found that an indirect benefit of FOAK was helping innovators to develop relationships with key rail stakeholders, which could potentially aid in identifying innovative solutions that would benefit these companies.
However, it found that more than half the projects observed (eight out of 15) were not delivered to market within 12 months of receiving the FOAK boost, which is the aim of the project. The report believes that FOAK leaves projects at a point where there is no natural process for the product to reach market, and with more time and funding still needed.
Considering that the projects selected are at a high TRL, the report suggests that issues could be one or a combination of these factors:
- There is misalignment between this desired aim of reaching market within 12 months and the projects being selected (overestimating the actual TRL of the FOAK project)
- The difficulties being encountered in this critical area (such as long safety certification timeframes, failure to overcome business switching costs, lack of scalability, procurement) are underestimated and therefore more time and budget is required to deliver projects to market
- Products delivered are not fully aligned with customer need or that customers are not for some reason able to exploit the product (e.g. franchise term precluding investment).
- The risk of not reaching market within 12 months is inadequately addressed during the project delivery phase
The report concludes that the processes of FOAK may need to be addressed when considering the best way to deliver the specific and challenging targets going forward.
Railway Industry Association innovation director Milda Manomaityte said: “This review of the First of a Kind funding shows how such competitions have helped spur a number of innovative projects across the rail sector, from areas like decarbonisation, digitalisation and more.
“However, the report also highlights the need to focus on getting innovations to market, ensuring they are commercially viable and able to drive improvements for those who use the railway every day.
“RIA’s Innovation Strategy, which will be launched at our Innovation Conference on 26-27 April, reaches similar conclusions about innovation uptake. It will make six key evidenced and practical asks of Government and decision makers to ensure the route to market is clear. This will drive private sector innovation and investment.
“We look forward to working with Government, through our work with Network Rail’s R&D Programme, UKRRIN and the Innovation Leadership Group, to support the uptake of these important innovation successes.”
Recent projects to benefit from the FOAK funding include innovative composite masts for rail electrification and a new system to electrify rail freight.
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