London Roadlab

Our innovation team delivered the London RoadLab mobility innovation accelorator for Transport for London over 10 weeks in 2019.

Reimagining roadworks with Transport for London

Roadworks get in the way of city life and contribute to delays on London’s roads, costing over £2 billion every year.

So Plexal, TfL and a consortium of some of the nation’s largest utilities providers invited innovators to transform London’s roads, making them safer, smarter and more inclusive during roadworks.

We effectively turned London into a living lab, giving the cohort companies funding, advice, data expertise and access to real pilot sites. They then pitched their ideas at a demo day to have the chance to be considered for a longer-term opportunity with TfL.

Plexal’s innovation team designed the programme, attracted and selected the right cohort members and helped them develop minimum viable products in just 10 weeks.

TfL entered into commercial negotiations with four members of our cohort and awarded Immense Simulations and SAM with contracts.

London RoadLab was a new way for TfL to work with businesses and tackle some of the capital’s transport challenges as our city keeps growing and evolving.

Operational technology

“Plexal’s work in designing and delivering London RoadLab helped us work with startups in a new way and embrace an open collaboration model. With Plexal’s support and expertise, we were able to identify the right companies to work with and engage with them meaningfully to run pilots and help them adapt their technology to TfL’s needs in just 10 weeks.”

“This allowed us to source innovation faster than ever before and we have awarded two cohort members contracts with TfL. It’s an exciting model that other transport bodies, cities and public sector organisations can learn from.”

– Rikesh Shah, head of commercial innovation, TfL

WHAT WE OFFERED MEMBERS

Expertise

Support and expert advice provided by TfL, its utilities partners and Plexal’s innovation team throughout the 10-week programme helped cohort members develop, test and commercialise their solutions.

Pilot sites

Ideas are great, but will they work in the real world? The cohort had access to real pilot sites around London to test and tinker with their solutions.

Funding

Successful applicants received funding towards scaling their solution.

Data

TfL’s data experts were on hand to help members use data insights from across London’s transport network.

CHALLENGE AREAS

SAFER

TfL has already implemented solutions to achieve its Vision Zero goal on our roads, but how do we minimise the health and safety risks for workers and the public even further during roadworks? Smart technology is already shaping London into a city of the future. But how can we take advantage of new and untried solutions to minimise the impact of roadworks?

SMARTER

Developments in smart technology across all industries are already shaping London into a city of the future. But how can we take advantage of new and untried solutions to minimise the impact of roadworks?

INCLUSIVE

Streets must be accessible to all Londoners and TfL has made a lot of progress in achieving its Healthy Streets vision. How do we leverage technology to make our roads even more inclusive during maintenance and upgrades?

NEWS AND VIEWS

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