An industry-wide initiative to discover innovative ideas that will help develop the rail freight terminals of the future has been launched by industry body Rail Forum.
Now in its fourth year, Rail Forum’s SME Challenge is designed to provide opportunities for SMEs to develop novel solutions to needs identified by different rail freight clients across the industry. This year's challenge, Freight Terminals of the Future, was launched in April and will focus on 'working smarter, not harder'.
Rail Forum is working in collaboration with a number of businesses including Tarmac, DB Cargo, Freightliner, Ermewa, and GB Railfreight, is supported by the University of Derby and Rail Freight Group.
Bob Hodgson, Engagement Manager at Rail Forum said: “We are really pleased to bring this fourth challenge opportunity to the SME community. Some of the areas SMEs should consider are decarbonisation, automation and digitalisation. The Rail Forum SME challenges have been very successful with a number of SME’s gaining First of A Kind funding to bring their products to market.”
Elaine Clark, CEO of the Rail Forum said: “The success of the SME Challenges demonstrates that they are providing real opportunities for SMEs to work collaboratively with clients to take their ideas from concepts through to the next stages of development and we look forward to watching them come to life.”
Chris Swan, Head of Rail at Tarmac, one of the largest users of rail freight in the UK, said: “We’re always keen to explore new ways of innovating rail freight and, in particular, opportunities to further reduce CO2 across our business and the industry.
“The SME challenge is a great opportunity for collaboration and to discover creative ideas from inside and outside of the sector to develop UK rail terminals of tomorrow. We are proud to be part of such an exciting initiative and look forward to hearing from SMEs nationwide as the challenge gets underway.”
Elaine Clark, CEO of the Rail Forum said; “The success of the SME Challenges demonstrates that they are providing real opportunities for SMEs to work collaboratively with clients to take their ideas from concepts through to the next stages of development and we look forward to watching them come to life.”
To find out more about the challenge and to get involved, please contact robert@midlandsrail.co.uk