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

  • Strategy to connect the UK’s northern cities
    March 20, 2015
    Plans to revolutionise travel in the north, including a new TransNorth rail system and new road investments, will today be set out by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin and northern city leaders. As part of building a northern powerhouse, the Chancellor established Transport for the North (TfN) to bring together northern transport authorities, and tasked it with working with government to create the first ever comprehensive tr
  • Europe’s public transport ITS market expected to exceed US$1.9 billion by 2017
    November 18, 2013
    According to new research from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the market value for public transport intelligent transport systems (ITS) in Europe was US$1.3 billion in 2012. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of nine per cent, the market is expected to reach US$1.9 billion by 2017. Berg Insight suggests that the European market for ITS for public transport is in a growth phase which will continue throughout the forecasted period. The fluctuating economic climate has in most countries had little eff
  • Road pricing is inevitable – because the ‘user pays’ principle is fair
    June 14, 2018
    We pay for roads through our taxes: the poor pay proportionately more, and effectively subsidise the rich. It would be fairer to accept the ‘user pays’ principle, says Dr John Walker. Road pricing is already used worldwide to combat congestion and pollution, to compensate for falling revenues from fuel duty (‘gas tax’), to provide an alternative (and fairer) means of charging motorists than the 80-year old fuel tax and to improve the efficiency of and expand transport infrastructure. However, it could and s
  • UK plans fully integrated transport network to high tech hot spots
    December 9, 2013
    The UK government’s plans to support the country’s burgeoning high-tech industry, centred on London, Cambridge and Oxford, are being facilitated by the Department for Transport (DfT) and its plans for a fully integrated transport network linking each of the three core technical clusters, as well as the wider technical community. The DfT is developing proposals for the construction of a new railway line from Bedford to Cambridge. This would build on the ongoing work on the east-west rail project and compl