Mobility Innovators

Open innovation is becoming a buzzword for public sector enterprises. Open Innovation is the process of crowdsourcing solutions to solve the challenges or problems faced by the enterprise.

All transit agencies understand the importance of building an innovation ecosystem and integrating new solutions. We conducted a survey of public transit authorities and operators, 99% of the respondents worked or wanted to work with startups. However, the majority of them highlighted two key challenges –

a) How to engage with startups owing to limitations under the public procurement model?

b) How to find out the most feasible solutions for their problems?

Open Innovation challenges are becoming an important mechanism for addressing these issues. To manage challenges and prize competitions across its public departments, the US federal government operates an open challenge platform (www.challenge.gov).

TfL (Transport for London) is always a catalyst for mobility innovation, and it has many firsts to its credit, including traffic lights, metro trains, smart ticketing, open data policies, and so on. In order to engage with startups, the organization has also developed a one-of-a-kind commercial innovation model. Instead of a traditional RFP (Request for Proposal), TfL issues a problem statement and invites companies to solve it.

London Freight Lab

London Freight Lab was launched in 2020 with an aim to reduce the impact of freight in the city. The challenge was launched to develop innovative ideas to make the way goods move around the city safer, cleaner, and more efficient. As part of the challenge, TfL offered £20,000 in funding, land sites, and subject matter expertise. Six companies were selected as part of the challenge:

	helping cities with digital kerbside management
	work with organizations to help them take steps to reduce air and noise pollution caused by transport
	looking to disrupt the tyre industry by developing a new generation of more energy-efficient tyres for electric vehicles
	developed a freight delivery solution utilized last-mile delivery methods such as e-bikes and walkers
	have a software platform to make deliveries more efficient by connecting van drivers with last-mile couriers on foot or on bike
	helping with road safety by using dash cams and aggregating that information to use in training courses for drivers that might be able to change their behavior.

Vision Zero Lab

As part of Vision Zero Lab, TfL launched Bus Safety Innovation Challenge in 2019 to identify new, innovative products and solutions to improve the safety of TfL buses. London is committed to achieving zero deaths or serious injuries on London’s roads and public transport network by 2041.

All innovative solution providers were required to tie-up with London bus operator or manufacturer who should be the lead applicant. Five companies were selected as part of the challenge:

	helping with road safety by using dash cams and aggregating that information to use in training courses for drivers that might be able to change their behavior.
	Autonomous driving, situational awareness, and control systems technology to improve vehicle safety
	Vehicle Avoidance Lateral Lights system to prevent accidents
	Tracking drivers movement to prevent any accidents due to drowsiness and distraction in driving
	provides driver dash-cam and video telematics to improve driver safety

London RoadLab

This was the first innovation program, launched in 2019, to find solutions to reduce the adverse impact of roadworks. TfL partnered with utilities, London councils, and Plexal, an innovation centre.

The selected companies did 10 weeks of co-development with TfL to build innovative solutions. Four companies were selected as winners:

	developed an automated way of modeling the impacts of roadworks before they are done to improve the flow of traffic and reduce disruption
	fit internet-enabled devices to vehicles and collect data on road quality to identify where the road surface is wearing out in realtime and make it much easier to predict where maintenance will be needed ahead of time
	offers specialized transport infrastructure monitoring solutions using sensors and cameras
	uses artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor social media to identify incidents and emergency events on the roads