DfT hopes 48-hour hackathon will get railways back on track

With its £38.5bn five-year plan to upgrade the railways yet to bring the desired results, the cash-strapped Department for Transport is turning to the tech world to spark some creative fixes and launching a 48-hour hackathon to improve Britain’s trains.

An estimated 150 software developers, designers and entrepreneurs from across the world will board trains from London to York on Friday and attempt to find new ways to make the railway more efficient.

The best ideas from the HackTrain weekend will be presented to ministers and rail executives next month, with the winning plan awarded a £25,000 investment fund to help make it reality.

The young developers will pay £25 each to spend their weekend inventing apps for the rail industry, and have been told to bring a sleeping bag.

HackTrain, a private initiative backed by the rail industry and the DfT, was founded by two young tech experts River Tamoor Baig and Alejandro Saucedo.

Baig said: “The HackTrain initiative will mark the first time that all major influencers from across the eco-system will come together for the purpose of improving passenger experience and operational efficiency in rail, by creating new technologies and identifying the micro-policies that are the biggest barriers to innovation.”

The transport minister said the initiative would unite two “national strengths” – those of the rail industry and innovative, hi-tech startups: “This is all about bringing together two of our big success stories that haven’t been brought together before,” Andrew Jones said. The event could help speed up the introduction of smart ticketing, he added.

The first integrated smartcard scheme outside London was introduced this month, in Newcastle, 12 years after Oyster cards were introduced in the capital. Jones said: “It has taken a long time for the UK to be getting on with it. If we have industries that are open to new ideas, that indicates an openness to technology and a desire to put customers at the heart of the business, and it could take things forward.”

Jones said one previous, similar hackathon had found a quick way to create an app to help passengers navigate large, interconnecting stations after train operating companies abandoned a similar project after 18 months of work costing £1.2m.

The Department for Transport has asked for solutions to advise passengers which carriage or train to choose to get a seat or avoid overcrowding, and to provide better information about reasons for disruption so passengers can plan accordingly.

With the department facing swingeing cuts to its budget in next week’s spending review, it may need all the assistance it can get.