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Transport Systems Catapult to develop intelligent transport solutions with UCL

Posted: 25 March 2019 | | No comments yet

The agreement between UCL and the Transport Systems Catapult was formally signed at UCL’s Bloomsbury Campus by Dr Celia Caulcott and Paul Campion.

Transport Systems Catapult to develop intelligent transport solutions with UCL

Dr Celia Caulcott and Paul Campion signing a partnership between UCL and TSC

Transport Systems Catapult and the University College London (UCL) have signed a Deep Academic Alliance agreement to together develop and implement intelligent transport solutions.

The three-year strategic collaboration is part of a Transport Systems Catapult programme that is designed to help universities more closely align their transport-related research with the needs of industry and government.

The agreement with UCL will focus on maximising the opportunities arising from UCL’s status as the only UK member of MOBiLus, a pan-European consortium which is working to set up an international innovation community for urban mobility after winning funding in December 2018 from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

Dr Celia Caulcott, Vice-Provost (Enterprise), UCL, said: “A key part of UCL’s mission is to create more connected, sustainable cities both here in the capital, across Europe and further afield. This Deep Academic Alliance with the Transport Systems Catapult will help to align UCL’s existing and long-standing expertise in transport research with the needs of industry, government and citizens. Major societal and technological challenges of this sort require collaborations between academia, industry and government and I look forward to seeing some of the solutions and innovations that will result from this partnership.”

The Transport Systems Catapult will also help support the development and promotion of UCL’s new Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL) – a 4,000m2 highly configurable simulation space which can be used to create life-like mock-ups of large-scale vehicles, urban environments and buildings.

Professor Nick Tyler, Director of the Centre for Transport Studies, UCL, said: “UCL greatly welcomes the opportunity to form a deep alliance with TSC around innovation at the intersection between mobility and the built environment. UCL’s recent £38 million commitment to fund the PEARL Laboratory, with a further £9 million from BEIS, and being the only UK member of the recently announced ‘EIT Urban Mobility’ knowledge innovation community, provides a strong basis for this deep alliance.”

Transport Systems Catapult CEO, Paul Campion, said: “We are truly excited about this opportunity to work closely with UCL as we continue to grow the UK’s share of the major new market for smarter, cleaner and more efficient transport solutions.”

The agreement with UCL follows on from the Deep Academic Alliances that Transport Systems Catapult has already formed with the University of Leeds, the University of Nottingham, Cranfield University and the University of Birmingham.