Reducing the cost of rail construction
East West Rail is a £7bn major infrastructure project, aimed at building a new train line between Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. The team at East West Rail wanted to explore new techniques and technologies to dramatically reduce the cost of construction and speed up the construction process.
The Sparksfly team created the "Trackathon", a series of two breakthrough industry innovation events.
In the first event, we invited 50+ professionals from across the rail industry to clarify and hone six different construction challenge statements. In the second event, we invited a curated list of 30+ startups, technology companies and suppliers to pitch their solutions to different challenges.
After the event, we conducted detailed analysis on the potential costs, benefits and operational implications of each challenge, before providing a recommendation of several suppliers to progress to proof of concept.
Across the prioritised suppliers we identified £8-figure CAPEX reduction opportunities. East West Rail is preparing to engage these suppliers for further testing.
"Sparksfly delivered a brilliant industry event, the outcomes of which will drive cost out of our construction programme."