Contracts for innovation: FOAK 2025

Overview

Innovate UK and the Department for Transport (DfT) are collaborating with the rail industry to accelerate and increase the adoption of innovation to improve UK railways. This is through the DfT’s First of a Kind (FOAK) Programme.

The FOAK Programme addresses industry challenges by running innovation competitions. The competitions focus on collaboration with industry and deliver high maturity demonstrations, enabling efficient integration into the railway system. This competition aims to support innovative suppliers for market readiness.

Proposals into this competition must already be high maturity at Rail Industry Readiness Level (RIRL) 5 or above. You must show evidence of this as part of your application.

Scope

The aim of the competition is to develop innovative solutions which address the following themes:

• Platform Train Interfaces
• Personal safety
• Bridge strikes
• AI for complex processes

You must select a single theme to apply for. If a project covers multiple themes, choose the one in which the majority of the work will be undertaken.

Your project must:

• Show how your solution aligns with one of the competition themes
• Demonstrate your solution can be integrated into an operational or construction railway environment as a ‘First of a Kind’
• Prove the commercial benefits of your solution to railway stakeholders and customers
• Provide a business case for commercial adoption, reducing risks and accelerating uptake of new technologies
• Collect customer and performance feedback
• Gather evidence about implementation challenges and explain how you will de-risk the implementation
• Demonstrate how your solution integrates into larger complex systems and delivers the expected outcomes

Although software for mobile devices (also known as applications) may be in scope, only a limited number of these projects will be supported to ensure a range of solutions are developed.

Specific themes

Platform Train Interfaces

This competition theme focuses on the Platform Train Interface (PTI). DfT are seeking innovative solutions to enhance the PTI, making it more accessible, safer and more efficient for all passengers.

The transition from train station platforms to trains presents significant challenges in accessibility, safety and efficiency. Existing technologies often fail to provide a seamless experience, particularly for passengers with reduced mobility.

In 2023, there were over 1 million mobility related assists involving the transition from train station platforms to trains. Assistance requests have increased annually since 2021 and are expected to pose a greater challenge as resources become stretched. The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) reports that incidents at the Platform Train Interface (PTI) account for nearly half of all passenger fatality risks on the mainline railway.

While the industry develops a long term strategy to mitigate the impacts of the PTI, there is still more that can be done in the meantime.

Applicants are encouraged to focus on innovative solutions which:

• Are low cost to install and cause minimal disruption
• Integrate with existing train and platform infrastructure
• Are inter-operable between different stations and trains
• Can be easily operated by station staff, train staff or customers
• Assist in notifying staff on platforms that a PTI incident has occurred
• Maintain current dwell times
• Improve the overall process and experience of accessible boarding
• Can be trialled and evaluated in a live station environment to get feedback from staff and customers
• Are at Rail Industry Readiness Level 5 or above and capable of delivering an immediate impact

DfT discourage applicants from focusing on solutions which:

• Are complex and difficult to operate
• Require high capital expenditure
• Require significant modifications or investments to signalling systems, platform nosings or train fleets
• Duplicate existing technologies

Personal safety

This competition theme focuses on personal safety. DfT are seeking innovative solutions to identify, mitigate, and improve responses to personal safety incidents on the railway, ensuring a safer experience for all passengers.

Feeling safe and secure on the railway is essential for travel. However, incidents such as trespassing, suicides, anti-social behaviour and violence are increasing across the network. These incidents not only cause delays for passengers but also create distress for everyone involved.

In particular, existing research suggests that both the occurrence and fear of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) can influence their travel choices. However, assessing VAWG incidents is challenging due to underreporting and underrepresentation in surveys and crime statistics.

There is an urgent need for innovative solutions to identify safety incidents, mitigate their impact, and improve response measures.

Applicants are encourged to focus on innovative solutions which:

• Address prevention, through measures such as raising awareness and education, designing and providing safer infrastructure, predicting crime hotspots, and improving understanding of perpetrators, particularly in cases of VAWG
• Address the immediate response, through measures such as equipping staff with tools and training to handle incidents effectively, enhancing personal safety, and making intervention during incidents easier
• Address the post-incident reaction, through measures such as improving intelligence via feedback and reporting, supporting investigations by identifying perpetrators effectively and promptly, and providing evidence; additionally, offer support to survivors, particularly those affected by VAWG
• Detect trespass events and incidents occurring in the absence of a train, including those involving mobility impaired individuals and the challenges they face if they fall onto the tracks, particularly from motorised wheelchairs and scooters
• Can be trialled and evaluated in a live station environment to gather feedback from staff and customers
• At a minimum of Rail Industry Readiness Level 5 and capable of delivering an immediate impact
• Can be trialled in a railway environment, with effectiveness measured to help operators better understand the problem

Applicants are discouraged from focusing on solutions which:

• Are complex and difficult to operate
• Require high capital expenditure
• Require significant modifications or investments to train fleets and stations
• Cannot integrate into existing systems or processes
• Duplicate or fail to integrate with existing technologies and systems such as the British Transport Police’s Railway Guardian app

Bridge strikes

This competition theme focuses on the Platform Train Interface (PTI). DfT are seeking innovative solutions to enhance the PTI, making it more accessible, safer and more efficient for all passengers.

The transition from train station platforms to trains presents significant challenges in accessibility, safety and efficiency. Existing technologies often fail to provide a seamless experience, particularly for passengers with reduced mobility.

In 2023, there were over 1 million mobility related assists involving the transition from train station platforms to trains. Assistance requests have increased annually since 2021 and are expected to pose a greater challenge as resources become stretched. The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) reports that incidents at the Platform Train Interface (PTI) account for nearly half of all passenger fatality risks on the mainline railway.

While the industry develops a long term strategy to mitigate the impacts of the PTI, there is still more that can be done in the meantime.

Applicants are encouraged to focus on innovative solutions which:

• Are low cost to install and cause minimal disruption
• Integrate with existing train and platform infrastructure
• Are inter-operable between different stations and trains
• Can be easily operated by station staff, train staff or customers
• Assist in notifying staff on platforms that a PTI incident has occurred
• Maintain current dwell times
• Improve the overall process and experience of accessible boarding
• Can be trialled and evaluated in a live station environment to get feedback from staff and customers
• Are at Rail Industry Readiness Level 5 or above and capable of delivering an immediate impact

DfT discourage applicants from focusing on solutions which:

• Are complex and difficult to operate
• Require high capital expenditure
• Require significant modifications or investments to signalling systems, platform nosings or train fleets
• Duplicate existing technologies

AI for complex processes

This competition theme focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for complex processes in rail. DfT are seeking innovative solutions that leverage AI technology to automate and optimise complex processes, improve decision making, enhance productivity, sustainability and minimise waste.

High Speed Two (HS2) is one of Europe’s largest rail and infrastructure projects, involving many complex processes. Similarly, Network Rail has a significant renewals and enhancement program, which also presents considerable complexity for teams to manage.

This process complexity is driven by several factors, including multiple stakeholders, a complex data landscape comprising both structured and unstructured data from disparate sources across the supply chain, and a highly regulated, safety critical environment.

Several processes in the delivery of large projects and programmes have been identified that could benefit from AI technology, helping to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and minimise passenger disruption.

These processes may include:

• Handover and transitions
• Cost verification and assurance
• Programme schedule and sequencing optimisation

Data challenges are often complex to resolve, and there is rarely a single, definitive solution involving just one supplier. Therefore, applicants are encouraged to work with other suppliers to provide an end to end solution through multiple point solutions that can be integrated into a tech stack.

A live demonstration must be included that will allow HS2 or Network Rail and others to assess the solution.

Applicants are encouraged to focus on AI powered solutions in the following areas:

• Process mining and simulation
• 3D modelling and generative design
• Data analytics
• Predictive analytics and decision intelligence
• Natural language query for business intelligence
• Market research and trend analysis
• Robotic process automation (RPA)
• Workflow automation
• Cognitive document processing and optical character recognition
• Supply chain optimisation
• Risk management
• Financial forecasting and budgeting
• Programme optimisation

Applicants are discouraged from focusing on solutions in the following areas:

• Digital twins
• Virtual and augmented reality
• Automated data cleansing and augmentation
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Conversational AI and chatbots
• Safety applications
• Operational rail technology
• Customer facing applications
• Duplicate existing technologies

Funding

A total of up to £4.7 million, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this competition across all four themes.

Contracts of up to £200,000, inclusive of VAT will be awarded to develop a prototype and undertake field testing between three to seven months and must be completed by 31 March 2026. No matched funding required.

Project duration

• Between 3 to 7 months
• Projects must start by 1^st September 2025
• End by 31^st March 2026

Contract value

• Up to £200,000 inclusive of VAT

Funding rates

• 100% funded

Eligibility criteria

Funding is for prototype development and evaluation which can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions.

Project work and key deliverables including the project demonstration and trialling must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK.

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design.

Subcontractors can be used but only for specialist skills.

It is expected that integration supporter will be included in your project to help facilitate the demonstration of your technology.

This could include:

• An owner of railway assets, for example, stations, rolling stock or infrastructure
• An experienced railway organisation
• A rail organisation that has the potential to become a customer