Innovation Award Shortlisted 
Arriva Road Transport Services (ARTS)

Arriva Road Transport Services (ARTS) is a road transport provider that aims to make a seamless transition from Rail to road. We want to remove the stereotypical Rail Replacement tag and make every journey as good as it can be for all customers. Train customers are our customers and we strive to please at every opportunity. We have worked extremely hard on how we provide realtime travel information to our customers during Rail Replacement, and as we continue in this digital age, having the correct information at your fingertips is more important than ever. ARTS is proud to be an industry leader in this area and we are proud of the achievements we have made to ensure our customers can have realtime information, not only at the stations at which they will be travelling through but also at their fingertips through apps. This groundbreaking work will not only improve the customer experience for ARTS customers, this will benefit the industry as a whole.

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Eversholt

Revolution Very Light Rail (RVLR) is an innovative, lightweight, cost-effective rail vehicle that provides a compelling alternative to operating traditional heavy rail vehicles on branch lines. Its low mass reduces all aspects of operating costs and can significantly improve the business cases for rural line reopenings and extensions, enhancing connectivity and assisting in levelling-up. RVLR’s innovative design combines automotive and rail technologies to provide an attractive, environmentally, and economically sustainable product that can be deployed very rapidly. The high proportion of UK-sourced systems also benefits the national supplier base. RVLR is a game-changer that facilitates modal shift and enhanced rail connectivity. It supports a more affordable, greener future for our railways.

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Evo-rail

Evo-rail, a British technology company formed from FirstGroup, was established to develop a track-to-train communications system which revolutionises digital communications within the rail industry. The product of 5 years’ worth of re-imaging and challenging existing digital operations and trackside-to-train architecture, rail-5G is a solution that surpasses today’s requirements. Rail-5G allows for unprecedented levels of connectivity and passenger access to over one gigabit of ultrafast internet. This will mean continuous passenger connection that rivals the connectivity offered in homes or at work, and is already being implemented on the UK’s busiest railway, South Western Railway (SWR). Created for the railways by rail experts, rail-5G puts innovation back at the heart of the industry and delivers customer and operational demands to develop a railway that is fit for the modern-day passenger. A one-of-a-kind solution designed to transform rail connectivity, rail-5G can be deployed quickly, at a fraction of the cost of mobile 5G, and can be delivered as carbon neutral, allowing the industry to meet net zero targets. A truly unique and pioneering approach, rail-5G is a solution that will deliver a step change for customer experience and catalyse a modal shift which is critical in addressing wider industry and economic objectives.

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Frazer – Nash Consultancy

Pos-iCast is a revolutionary possession optimisation capability developed by Frazer-Nash and eviFile to help deliver railway construction projects safer, quicker, and more cost effectively. Having met at the 2022 RIA innovation conference, the organisations recognised that by combining their complementary expertise, they could offer a game changing advancement in how possessions are managed. The work has been funded by the Department for Transport under a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) First Of A Kind (FOAK) 2022 competition and is based on combining eviFile’s successful possession data management platform with Frazer-Nash’s cutting-edge advanced data science experience. The responsive toolset has been designed to enable Network Rail and Persons in Charge of Possessions (PICOPs) make better data-driven decisions and develop improved plans to ensure that possessions are handed back on time when faced with disruption. Through predictive analysis and an intuitive user interface built on top of eviFile’s digitisation platform, decision makers can immediately understand which their risks lie, and test how any potential actions taken may propagate across a complex programme of works to impact their schedule. By maximising the work safely done within possessions and preventing delays, Pos-iCast will reduce industry costs and improve customer satisfaction among rail consumers.

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Rail Delivery Group

Rail is a fragmented ecosystem of providers from both the public and private sectors with no clear cross-sector view about what data is collected or available. The Rail Data Marketplace (RDM) will simplify access to rail-related data and open it up to a wider user base via a single access point. RDM is unique in the UK, providing access to both public and private sector data sources on a single government-sponsored platform. RDM has a unique hybrid ecosystem of ‘Open by Default’ data alongside commercialised data products underpinned by an in-flow licence builder to make access to data ‘friction-free’. While rail is the ‘green-spine’, journeys rarely start or end at the rail station. There will be inbound and outbound modes of travel across both passenger and freight, from scooters to ports! RDM is the foundation of a digital value chain to drive innovation with integrated tech and data solutions. This will deliver a better passenger experience and improve operational efficiency, to ultimately grow the rail industry.

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RazorSecure

With over 3200 operational deployments across 9 active operators, RazorSecure are rail cyber security specialists. We offer innovative new products and services to enhance the resilience of railway infrastructure, delivered through a holistic approach to cyber security. Designed specifically for rolling stock, signalling, and infrastructure systems, we are continuously innovating to keep ahead of a rapidly evolving threat landscape, and to provide the best protection against cyber attacks. Since 2021, it has been our drive to raise the profile of Digital Maintenance and to develop and deliver solutions to the market, bridging the gap between safety and cyber security.In March this year, we formally launched our Digital Maintenance Gateway (DMG) product, revolutionising over-the-air updates across multiple trains at once, and making the news in the railway press. With a vision for a more modern, agile, and reliable rail infrastructure, DMG offers a solution that reduces cost, improves sustainability, and drives future innovation. In celebration of our achievements and innovation to the railway sector, RazorSecure are entering the 2023 RIA RISE Awards and hope to showcase our contributions to this increasingly digitised industry."

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Schneider Electric

Compact Principal Supply Point is a revolutionary signalling power supply that uses patented technology to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint and cost compared to a conventional principal supply point, whilst retaining all of the functionality.

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Transmission Dynamics

Trains with Brains® is an innovative technical solution developed and demonstrated in collaboration with stakeholders from across the UK rail sector Network Rail, Angel Trains (ROSCO) and West Midland Trains (TOC)) to deliver and demonstrate a transferable solution to this need. This Industrial Internet of Things solution has demonstrated that by optimally placing train borne remote condition monitoring sensors with advanced onboard analytics on routinely operating trains can produce greatly enhanced infrastructure and asset intelligence. Additionally, bi-directional integration of data between solution providers and the asset/infrastructure operators enables operations and maintenance teams to more efficiently and effectively prioritise and address known issues. By networking individual and successful innovative technologies in their own right together, and integrated resulting intelligence into Network Rail, this has enabled significantly more informed maintenance planning. This RIA Award entry outlines how the above has enabled Network Rail to deliver possessions more efficiently (delivering multiple, prioritised, and sequenced tasks) through more informed planning and the relatively early yet very positive impacts this has had on the rail industry to date.

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University of Sheffield

Autumn low adhesion causes train safety and performance issues cost the GB railway industry £350 million per year. To maintain optimum railhead conditions, new, more flexible passenger train railhead cleaning systems are required. Cryo Technologies Ltd., the University of Sheffield and its partners have developed a first-of-a-kind underslung passenger train system based on firing dry-ice pellets at the railhead along with an AI friction prediction tool to enable “smart” railhead cleaning. The cryogenic cleaning approach has been proven on other platforms where significant braking and performance improvements were achieved. This provides a step change in mitigation against Autumn conditions to deal with a problem that has plagued railways since their inception.

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