Incremental is making rail safer as calls grow for HQ to be in York

Making the case for York to host the HQ for the new body, York Outer MP Julian Sturdy told parliament this week that the city had an ‘unrivalled skills base’ in rail employing 5,500 people, 10 per cent of the national total.

It is also at the centre of the UK’s largest rail cluster, with more than 100 relevant companies, employing 9,500 people within one hour of York.

Among these is York-based rail tech firm Incremental Solutions - a finalist in The Press Business of the Year Awards 2021 for business innovation.

Incremental is working on a trial data-gathering system which could make the UK’s rail network safer, cutting costs and delays, by identifying track geometry faults sooner.

Thales, which supplies automation solutions for railways, partnered with Incremental after receiving £500,000 from the Geospatial Commission to trial equipment intended to detect and locate potential track faults.

Founded in York in 2014, Incremental uses advanced data analysis techniques to drive change, counting Cross Country, Grand Central, LNER and Network Rail among its clients.

The tech and data-driven SME received Government funding this year to develop a tool, TRACO, to record exact positions of freight across rail and road, using sophisticated GPS and analysis tools, to maximise efficient use of the network.

A visualisation of Incremental Solutions’ real-time TRACO product.

CEO Daniel Lee-Burnsall said: "The FOAK funding has enabled us to stretch the boundaries with our expertise and provide a product that will optimise rail to road freight transition - with a successful by-product of helping the industry in achieving their decarbonisation milestones."

Daniel and co-founder Dr Lewis Gill said TRACO was progressing well, with support from Innovate UK, Network Rail and main freight operators.

"It’s really important that we create real solutions which solve real problems rather than grand ideas which need a problem to solve."

The duo say York's rich rail heritage, stretching back to 1839 when George Hudson decided to make York a major railway hub, made it a great place to be based.

"This heritage, though diluted throughout the 20th Century, remains a central influence on the city with Network Rail deciding to locate their Rail Operations Centre within the city as well as Northern, Transpennine Express, and Grand Central also being based locally," added Lewis.

"Incremental also believe that York remains a key operations hub for all things technical within the railway and having easy access for face-to-face discussions with the major players has allowed business to flourish."

Daniel said York's global reputation as a tourism city meant sectors such as theirs could get overlooked.

"There are some brilliant businesses we know of who are making fantastic strides and making a great impact in the industries they serve; technology and and agri-tech for example. They just don’t make the headlines in the same way the tourism elements of the city do.

"Rail and tourism are also connected, however we like to look much broader at how rail enables the country as a whole."

He added: "Certainly, over the past 15 years the railway has become more important due to the growing concerns of global warming and with the aim to be carbon neutral by 2050. Over the next 30 years we expect further funding to be sunk into the rail industry as the government aims to cut down on air and car emissions and Incremental hope to be there in assisting on this."

The duo's drive to improve the railway is, in part, fuelled by their other passion of making sense out of data.

Daniel said: "We know that many of the solutions to improving the rail sector start with understanding exactly what is going on, and why. We also believe that efficiency and safety should always be at the heart of progression.

"We are immensely proud that what we do makes a difference, and yes, can be attributed to safety; no amount of money can compensate for a life lost so anything that Incremental can do to save a life should not be seen as a success, but as a duty."

Incremental's products enable remote condition monitoring, meaning greater lengths of track and trackside infrastructure can be monitored than previous ‘naked eye’ methods.

This means there is less need for trackside workers to be in dangerous locations, on tracks near active trains.

What next? "We have made some incredible progress and with each passing day our name and reputation grows," said Lewis. "Our focus over the next few years is to unlock the overseas markets while also developing new innovate products to roll out in the UK."