Fugro wins Innovate UK ‘First of a kind’ funding to support rail industry innovation

The FOAK2020 award will fund 9 months of development of Fugro’s Innotamp project in collaboration with Network Rail. A world-first for track maintenance, the funded project will demonstrate how track alignments generated using Geo-data from Fugro’s Raildata Solution can be directly uploaded to a tamper’s computer to optimise tamping of railway lines.

The FOAK2020 innovation programme, funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and managed by Innovate UK, aims to demonstrate how proven technologies can be integrated into a railway environment for the first time (‘first of a kind’ demonstrations). It encourages innovation in the rail industry using novel technologies such as RILA and new ways of applying data.

The Innotamp project utilises Fugro’s RILA technology, which makes use of in-service passenger trains to survey the network at line speed and generate high-accuracy geodetic track data, to streamline tamping operations. The immediate benefit is improved productivity and, over time, it will lead to lower annual maintenance costs, improved passenger comfort, and less disruption to rail services.

Robert Hoddenbach, Fugro’s Global Director for Land Asset Integrity, said: “We are very excited to be working on the FOAK2020 programme, which aligns with our vision to combine innovative digital technologies into integrated solutions for our clients. This funding is significant and will fast-track development and integration of the Innotamp project so we can provide fast, high-quality and regular survey data for predictive track maintenance.”