Skip to main content

Business Secretary opens UK centre for smart transport technology

UK Business Secretary Vince Cable today opened a new innovation centre for smart transport technology that will transform the movement of people and goods around the world, generating up to £90 billion per year for the UK by 2025. Based in Milton Keynes, the Transport Systems Catapult’s ‘Imovation Centre’ will help make journeys more seamless, smart, and efficient. It will support business growth in this emerging market, positioning the UK as a global leader in Intelligent Mobility products and services
June 12, 2014 Read time: 3 mins
UK Business Secretary Vince Cable today opened a new innovation centre for smart transport technology that will transform the movement of people and goods around the world, generating up to £90 billion per year for the UK by 2025.

Based in Milton Keynes, the 7800 Transport Systems Catapult’s ‘Imovation Centre’ will help make journeys more seamless, smart, and efficient. It will support business growth in this emerging market, positioning the UK as a global leader in Intelligent Mobility products and services -- from driverless vehicles and improved airport data systems to integrated logistics, sentiment mapping and smart traffic lights.

The centre is part of the Government’s industrial strategy – a long-term plan to deliver high-skilled jobs and growth.

Speaking at a special media preview of the Centre in Milton Keynes, Vince Cable said: “Britain has a long history of transport innovation; from the shipbuilders who paved the way for globalisation, to the railways, that underpinned the industrial revolution. This new innovation centre will ensure the UK is well placed to profit from the increased demand for high-tech transport solutions- creating jobs, supporting businesses, and driving economic growth.”

Operated by the Transport Systems Catapult, the Imovation Centre (combining Intelligent Mobility and innovation) is a world-class collaboration space for innovators, entrepreneurs, research organisations and businesses using the latest technological developments to improve the transportation of people and goods. It will also offer modelling and testing facilities, allowing new products to be properly trialled and demonstrated.

Steve Yianni, chief executive of the Transport Systems Catapult said: “Intelligent Mobility harnesses new technologies to create seamless journeys, where transport is smart and connected, and delays and congestions are a thing of the past. The Imovation Centre will take the brightest solutions to the most pressing transport challenges, and help make those ideas a commercial success.”

The Transport Systems Catapult is one of a new network of elite technology and innovation centres established by the 2231 Technology Strategy Board as a long-term investment in the UK’s economic capability. Applying business-led research, Catapults help businesses transform great ideas into valuable products and services to compete in the global markets of tomorrow.

It is estimated that the global market in Intelligent Mobility will be worth around £900 billion a year by 2025, and the Imovation Centre aims to help the UK secure at least a ten per cent share of that market. The Transport Systems Catapult will directly contribute £712 million in economic value to the UK during its first five years (2013-2018).

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smarter transport remains key to smart cities
    January 9, 2018
    Colin Sowman looks at some of the challenges and solutions that will provide enhanced transport efficiency in tomorrow’s smarter cities. However you define a ‘smart city’, one of the key ingredients will be an efficient transport system. As most governments and city authorities face financial constraints, incremental improvements in the existing systems is the most likely way forward. In London, new trains and signalling are improving the capacity of the Underground but that then reveals previously
  • New Haven shows small can be beautiful
    October 22, 2014
    Connecticut’s new administration is using smart policy and ITS solutions to bridge social divides. Andrew Bardin Williams investigates. With only 130,000 residents, New Haven can hardly be called a metropolis. Measuring less than 502km (18 square miles), the city is huddled against the coast, squeezed between two mountains (appropriately called East Rock and West Rock) that, at 111m and 213m (366ft and 700ft) respectively, can hardly be called mountains. The airport is small and has limited service, and th
  • Amey: sustainability ‘crucial’ for future of mobility
    November 14, 2019
    No business conversation over the next 10 years can really be had without talking about sustainability, says infrastructure support company Amey. Speaking at the launch of the firm’s latest white paper at the London Transport Museum this week, managing director of Amey Investments Asif Ghafoor insisted that “it needs to be part of your core DNA in your business decisions and investment decisions”. He explained that the paper addresses issues such as having the right people to deliver infrastructure wh
  • Survey - majority of people would be reluctant to be a passenger in a driverless car
    May 27, 2016
    According to a survey carried out by ICM Unlimited on behalf of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 55 per cent of the 2002 people surveyed said they were unlikely to want to be a passenger of a driverless car, with 40 per cent saying they were very unlikely to want to be a passenger. Just 21 per cent said they would be happy to ride in a driverless vehicle. Philippa Oldham, head of Transport and Manufacturing at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “The benefits of driverless vehicle tech