Testing and
Demonstrating

Validate your investments and
maximise their real-world impact

Customer Case Studies

Mobility-as-a-service

Mobility-as-a-Service is challenging the balance between private cars and shared transport. But creating business models which ensure commercial sustainability and profitability can be difficult.

Glasgow Airport

Connected Places Catapult is partnering with Glasgow Airport to create the UK’s first Connected Airport Living Lab, to trial innovative technologies.

Benefits of our
Testing and demonstrating

Deploy Innovations with minimum risk

Reduce the uncertainty of introducing new technologies, build robust business cases and mitigate any potential financial, operational and reputational risk.

Compliance assured

All testing approaches can be designed to meet agreed regulatory standards and requirements, so you can introduce innovation while mitigating risk to your organisation.

Maximise user acceptance

Testing gives you the opportunity to gain real-time feedback and assess user acceptance and the potential impact of technologies.

Connect people, places and business

Bring together key stakeholders to solve a market challenge, and build in-house capacity and an innovation culture.

Create an innovation ecosystem

Diversify supply chains and facilitate environments which allow for the rapid testing, development and adoption of new technologies.

Meet citizen needs

Attract diverse solutions providers to help solve the most pressing challenges of the time, and co-design to meet evolving end user requirements.

Our Impact

Confidence

Builds confidence for rail technology buyers

Innovation

Introduces new innovation technologies

Collaboration

Generates collaborations between client and suppliers

Diversity

Fosters a more diverse supply chain

What our customers say

“In year two of the Station Innovation Zone we hope to make some tangible improvements to the passenger experience. Bristol Temple Meads is a busy station with a lot of renovation work going on, so anything we can deliver that solves some of our day-to-day problems will be great. Through Connected Places Catapult and the Station Innovation Zone, we are able to bring in a range of companies with innovations who we would not usually meet in our normal, day to day business.”

Calum Mackay, Head of Stations and Passenger Experience, Network Rail

“Without this programme (Homes for Healthy Aging), we would not have achieved the range of learning we did. It’s been an opportunity to change the way we deliver homes in the future, so it’s exciting to see how we can drive the next stage of learning and delivery.”

Graham Scanlon, Assistant Director of Housing & Communities, Sunderland City Council

What does testing &
demonstrating involve?

The approach to Innovation Testing and Demonstrating will vary but these are some of the types of projects we run to unlock the potential of challenge-led innovation through taking a market-first approach:

Two women are sitting and talking in a brightly lit office. One woman, wearing glasses and a white blouse, smiles while holding a cup. The other woman, in a purple top, sits facing her.

Trials

Trials focus on prototype implementation, and how a proposed solution can tackle an innovation challenge. They can be standalone, or part of a testbed or Accelerator. Their duration can vary, with short trials of three months often used to test a new technology, whilst longer ‘pilot’ trials of 6-9 months will more often gauge attitudes from end-users, and investigate the behavioural change incentives needed to ensure uptake of a solution.

Testbeds

Sometimes referred to as a ‘living lab’ or ‘sandbox’, a testbed is an experimental, co-creative approach to innovation that tests, demonstrates, and advances new socio-technical arrangements in a model environment under real-world conditions. These testbeds may be set up to run multiple trials at once, as well as for ongoing market engagement.

Market making

Using real-world testing and testbeds as a concrete means to bring together stakeholders around a market challenge and demonstrate the potential of innovative approaches.