Rising fuel costs, overcrowded traffic commutes, and mounting environmental concerns have all played a part in a growing cultural push for more people to use public transportation. However, many travelers often scowl at this notion as the idea of public transportation can come tied to perceived notions of negative customer experiences.
But now the British government hopes to change that with a plan to ultimately improve the customer experience, increase the carrier capacity of trains, and encourage innovations across the entire rail industry. To accomplish this feat, Rail Minister Claire Perry has just announced a new £6 million competition to motivate businesses to address the concerns over deteriorating customer engagement practices and overall industry standards.
“Innovation is vital to the rail industry as passenger numbers and customer expectations continue to rise,” said Perry. “Harnessing the latest technology and being creative in customer service hold the key to staying competitive. That’s why along with investing record amounts in rail infrastructure as part of our long term economic plan, we are providing £6 million this year to encourage train operators to collaborate with each other and their supply chains to come up with projects that will transform the industry and make it ready for future challenges.”
The £6 million in funds will be provided by the Department for Transport and will officially be called FutureRailway. Overseen by a group of experts to help invigorate research and development among UK train operator companies (TOCs), FutureRailway is intending to not only remedy the current problems facing the industry, but will also attempt to plan for the unforeseen challenges of the future.
According to the Rail Technical Strategy, the current and future challenges that must be surmounted are known as the 4C’s. They are customer 
experience, expanded capacity, reduced costs, and reduced carbon. And FutureRailway is inviting train operators and train supply chains to offer up their proposals to solve these problems. To be considered for the competition, these proposals must be comprehensive in scope and feature concepts, designs, and even working operational prototypes.
The government expects UK train companies to begin submitting their proposals soon, as the competition has now been officially opened.