Webinars
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session One
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session Two
External Resources
Improving Connectivity in Rural Communities - Rural Transport Accelerator: Connected Places Catapult
Transport Decarbonisation Demonstrator winners announced: UK Research and Innovation
Innovative Schemes to enhance Rural Connectivity
Through our Rural Mobility Centre of Excellence, we’re proud to have supported Connected Places Catapult in delivering the Rural Transport Accelerator – a Department for Transport funded programme developing new travel and transport solutions for rural communities.
Eight projects across the country each received up to £150,000 to trial innovative approaches to key rural transport challenges, including off-grid electric vehicle charging, sustainable freight, and more efficient passenger services. Four of these projects were based in The East, highlighting the region’s potential to lead the way in rural mobility innovation.
As a supporter of the programme, Transport East helped applicants from our region put forward strong proposals and later provided a platform through webinars for the eight pilots to showcase their schemes to a wider audience. The webinars are available below:
Webinars and presentations
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session One
We showcased five projects from the Catapult’s Rural Transport Accelerator programme, exploring solutions that make rural mobility smarter, greener, and more inclusive:
- Jon Little (Beta Streets) – Engage 360: A collaborative street design tool built on a game engine, making community engagement in street planning more accessible and interactive.
- Emma Gibbons (YouSmartThing) – AI Travel Marketplace: A smart travel planning platform offering curated, multimodal journey options that combine demand-responsive transport (DRT), public transport, taxis, and active travel.
- Emily Macdonald (Intelligen) – powerPOD: A solar-powered, off-grid storage and charging station designed specifically for Light Electric Vehicles (LEVs), supporting sustainable rural mobility.
- Carl Hopkins (Civil Water Management) – Hydrotrench: A modular, permeable drainage system made from recycled tyre rubber, addressing infrastructure resilience and sustainability.
- Ali Clabburn (Mobilityways) – IVORA Trial: Testing a multi-technology approach to detect and incentivise shared vehicle use, promoting more efficient and sustainable travel behaviour.
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session Two
This webinar showcases the remaining three pilot projects from the Catapult’s Rural Transport Accelerator programme, and pilot schemes from Innovate UK’s Transport Decarbonisation Demonstrators (TDD) programme.
- Tom McKenna (Alchera) – Rural Travel Behaviour Model: Combining origin-destination data with service reliability metrics to provide a detailed understanding of rural travel patterns.
- Stevie Revill (Urban Tide) – uMove Rural: Integrating health and transport data to map healthcare access and virtually test demand-responsive transport (DRT) alternatives.
- Nick Devitt (Rural Design Centre) – Social Value assessment of Catapult’s Rural Transport Accelerator programme pilot projects and their contribution to community wellbeing.
- Jeremy Woolley (Paua Tech) – Part of the TDD project, exploring depot sharing and eHGV project work to support sustainable freight in rural areas.
- Pooya Kamvari (Homerun) – HomerunSTEP: Part of the TDD project, focusing on innovative approaches to reducing emissions in rural transport.
The final report from Connected Places Catapult, Improving Connectivity in Rural Communities - Rural Transport Accelerator Report, highlights the pilot schemes funded to improve connectivity, safety, and sustainability in rural areas. The report is available below.
£1.6 million has been invested across seven projects to support research and development into the decarbonisation of transport across the UK. Find out more from UK Research and Innovation by clicking below
Webinars
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session One
Rural Transport Pilot Project Showcase: Session Two
External Resources
Improving Connectivity in Rural Communities - Rural Transport Accelerator: Connected Places Catapult