Are “Hackatons” the new way of producing innovative ideas for the railway industry?

On the 8th of December, HS2 Ltd and the Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) will be holding a 2 day “Hackaton” in order to share ideas and concepts to expedite delivery of High Speed Two (HS2), one of the largest modern infrastructure projects in the UK.

The best ideas will be selected to go through to a showcase event, where an expert panel will decide which teams will receive support to develop their idea further.

The event invites teams (formed from individuals or pre-formed groups) to explore how new technologies might revolutionise key aspects of the HS2 project.

Some of the topics that the teams need to come up with ideas for include:

• Well-being and safety through wearable technology or human machine interface design
• Augmented reality and virtual reality for a step change in construction and operation, such as training and maintenance inspections
• How existing and new technologies can help minimise disruption to passengers and communities during construction of HS2 and how the new HS2 stations can perform even better for everyone.

TSC have hosted ‘Hackatons’ in the past, and they have generated novel ideas with potential to revolutionise transport systems, and have attracted major funding from Innovate UK for further development.

So is this the way forward for the Railway Industry? TSC has already proved that the concept works with previous “Hackatons”, so why not expand the concept to other countries as well?

To find out more about the event, visit TSC site here.