Each Thursday until spring, a dozen start up companies and entrepreneurs will gather in an office block aptly named ‘Platform’ to receive advice and discuss plans with business consultant Alt Labs which has teamed up with Transport for Wales.

Together they are running a rail innovation competition which will see the very best concepts share a £25,000 prize pot and – hopefully for those entering – see their ideas introduced to stations or on trains throughout the country.

“We are looking for projects that will help to improve our customer satisfaction scores, make passengers feel more at ease and allow them to enjoy their journeys more,” explains Transport for Wales’ insight and innovation manager Mike Davies. “The finalists will start testing their ideas soon and feedback from the public will help us to decide which are successful.”

Alt Labs chief executive Imran Anwar said the ‘Accelerator’ challenge is all about “helping start-ups to cracks rail”. He adds that it is the smaller companies who tend to be “more agile and can develop products faster” and therefore offer a great deal to help the railways function better for people.

Among the entrepreneurs, start up and ‘scale up’ companies preparing to pitch their ideas to Transport for Wales is Wesley James of QI Managed Services, which has developed a ‘smart’ bench combining a place to sit with the ability to charge a smartphone and access the internet through a wi-fi hotspot.

“Getting into rail can be difficult for small to medium sized companies, so it has been extremely informative to be able to sit with stakeholders and discuss our plans,” he says.

Another is Chris Heddle of Clevercity Systems, which has engineered a smart parking system designed to allow motorists to more quickly identify if parking spaces are available in a facility beside a rail station. Sensors mounted on lamp posts record the number of available spaces and data can be provided to motorists via a website or display screen. The hope is that drivers who might otherwise think a facility is full and drive on will have the confidence to enter a car park.

Also preparing his pitch is Fredi Nonyelu of technology company Briteyellow which digitally maps indoor spaces such as railway stations, to help passengers who are unfamiliar with a station and those with mobility impairments to ‘see’ the space on their smartphone before they arrive and plan their route.

And a fourth contender is Chris Johns of Passageway, whose company installs digital wayfinding signs in urban environments that incorporate multi modes of travel.

Continually striving to seek out innovation is important not only for rail, but all sectors says Alt Labs’ Imran Anwar. “In the next 10 years many large companies will die out if they fail to innovate or change. They have to ask themselves what would happen if a Google or Uber came into their market space.

“In other countries, you see them gearing up towards hyperloop; but in Britain we can be too risk adverse. We need to focus on the future.”

(Photograph: Matt Buck and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)