38 UK and French companies applied to the Eurotunnel open call to boost their rolling stock infrastructure with predictive maintenance solutions. Then, after a thorough selection process, the Eurotunnel rolling stock experts selected six UK companies to join an open innovation event in Calais.
Innovation on the Eurotunnel
Even large and iconic rail companies can sometimes use a hand when it comes to navigate an innovation market. We were asked by Eurotunnel to help them tap into the UK ecosystem.
So we worked with their rolling stock department to support an open-innovation process. We helped match Eurotunnel with UK businesses that had railway innovation solutions that could help overcome the transport firm’s challenges.
Those six UK companies offering a variety of innovations were Acoustic Sensor Networks, InfoGrid, Metasphere, Perpetuum, Ubipos and Velocity RDT.
These British companies competed against 12 French companies for the chance to establish an exclusive partnership with Eurotunnel experts to deploy and fine tune their solutions on Eurotunnel’s infrastructure. The event was a huge success with half our delegation awarded for their innovation — an excellent outcome for UK Plc.
The railway solutions innovation open day gave our companies the chance to meet with the Eurotunnel rolling stock experts to discuss the technical details of their solutions, explore use cases for Eurotunnel and talk about what a collaboration would look like (deployment, costs etc.). The companies also pitched in front of a wider audience, including the vice president of GetLink (Eurotunnel’s mother company), other department directors, academics, partners of Eurotunnel and other providers.
At the end of the day, three companies were awarded by Eurotunnel experts including UK-based Velocity RDT and InfoGrid.
Velocity RDT is an IoT technology company providing unique predictive fatigue monitoring solutions that Eurotunnel is keen to test it in the tunnel environment.
InfoGrid is an IoT company offering turnkey solutions designed to seamlessly retrofit any infrastructure and existing equipment in seconds, lowering costs and reducing waste. Eurotunnel liked the simplicity of their solution and is keen to see its potential impact on its rolling stock.
Velocity RDT and InfoGrid were both awarded an exclusive open innovation partnership with Eurotunnel to start deploying their tech on their rolling stock and a team assigned to support the development of their solutions.
Further Reading & Listening
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