Aimed at bringing ‘fresh thinking and a new perspective’ to the much delayed and over-budget railway, the innovation programme is delivered in partnership with the Connected Places Catapult and Bruntwood SciTech.

The rail project has committed to reducing the carbon impact of construction by 50%, as well as delivering low-carbon journeys and cutting carbon emissions from other forms of transport.

The five new small and medium-sized firms in the Innovation Accelerator are:

·      Looper, developing technology that analyses designs to ensure that plans and materials use the least-carbon intensive options

·      MachineMax, developing technology to monitor and improve the operating efficiency of worksite plants and machinery. It will identify where assets are working below capacity in order to cut emissions, accelerate work and reduce costs

·      Tended, developing wearable technology that buzzes to alert wearers to potential worksite risks. It also sends alerts to a central database, to build site maps and identify risk hotspots

·      Fyld, developing technology that uses artificial intelligence, language processing and machine learning to inform teams’ safety, quality and productivity decisions

·      Sensing Feeling, developing solutions for ‘de-risking’ construction sites by using advanced sensing software powered by computer vision and machine learning.