National Highways has announced the 10 winners of a competition to find innovations that improve people’s experiences of roadworks.
They range from a digital twin system to a centralised hub for engagement with road users and video analytics software to provide insights on roadwork experiences.
National Highways launched the competition last year, in collaboration with Connected Places Catapult, to find new or existing technology, products or solutions that can make a positive difference to people’s experience of roadworks.
The winners are:
- Immense Simulations (London)
- Alchera Technology (Cambridge)
- Innovation Factory (Birmingham)
- Robok (Cambridge)
- Fewzed (Castle Cary)
- Emu Analytics (London)
- Colas (Birmingham team)
- Lokulus (Macclesfield)
- Nerds with Words (Gateshead)
- Be Mobile (Melle, Belgium)
National Highways said that one of the goals of the competition was to allow smaller enterprises, which have not traditionally had the opportunity to work directly with it, to showcase their ideas and win the chance to take them out on the road network.
Each of the winners will now get £15,000 to develop their ideas, with the most successful given the opportunity to trial their idea on the strategic road network.
National Highways customer service director Laura Baker-Lacey said: ‘We wanted to find ideas that we hadn’t trialled, tested or even thought of ourselves – and we haven’t been disappointed.
‘We have chosen 10 very exciting projects that could really help reduce the impact of roadworks on road users.
‘Roadworks are an essential part of managing, developing and maintaining our roads but we know they are a cause of frustration for not only drivers but those in the surrounding communities and local businesses.’
They will also get technical and commercial support from experts at Connected Places Catapult and at National Highways to help develop and scale up their innovations.
