National Highways Hazard Protection on Roads Accelerator
We’re working with Connected Places Catapult to launch a new innovation competition to help protect road users by better managing hazards on the country’s motorways and major A-roads.
We’re targeting small or medium enterprises that may not have worked with us before and could have as yet undiscovered innovation gems to share with us around improving hazard protection.
Your entry could offer a completely novel approach to the issue, apply existing technologies in new areas or develop new technologies for existing areas. The innovations must fall within one of the following categories:
- Gathering data about hazards on roads – technologies which contribute to identifying and gathering data on hazards such as CCTV data, analytics, satellite and in-car data including GPS and vehicle sensors.
- Streamlining hazard responses – helping to respond quickly and accurately to any identified hazard, solutions could include automatically alerting drivers, automated responses and clean-up of hazards and notifying professionals such as traffic officers.
- Improving driver notification of hazards – better notification to drivers when a hazard is identified or, for planned roadworks, making sure drivers are aware and know how to safely navigate.
- Improving testing of hazard detection technology – this aims to assess the real-world performance of any technology, enabling smoother software updates and also to generate datasets on hazard detection performance.
- Influencing drivers to reduce unsafe behaviour – we want to identify and accelerate any innovations which could reduce unsafe driving behaviour such as using mobile phones or stopping unnecessarily on motorways.
What’s on offer
Judges will select up to 10 finalists to take their designs forward with funding of £15,000 to £30,000 to develop their ideas.
The submissions will then be whittled down to five and those projects awarded up to £60,000 to deliver their trials over a five-month period.
All 10 finalists will be guided through a bespoke programme tailored to their requirements offering coaching and mentoring, business development opportunities, and technical and procurement support.
The competition is open to small- or medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 250 employees.
How to get involved
Visit the Connected Places Catapult website to apply for the competition. You can also sign up to join an application support webinar taking place on 21 November 2023, from 2pm to 3.30pm
Deadline
Applicants have until midnight 31 December 2023 to submit their ideas.
For more information contact:
Natasha.Giroux@cp.catapult.org.uk
