£300k UK Aid funding transport improvement projects in developing countries

Posted on: 19/12/2018

10 projects approved for UK Aid funding to support improvements to High Volume Transport in developing countries.

The Transport-Technology Research Innovation for International Development (T-TRIID) is an initiative funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) and implemented IMC Worldwide, with support from KTN.

The aim is to help companies develop novel ideas to improve transportation in Africa and South Asia. Applicants had to demonstrate that their project delivered an innovative technical, operational or policy-based solution in the following themes: long distance strategic road and rail transport, urban transport, low carbon transport and gender, vulnerable groups and inclusion (particularly the disabled) in High Volume Transport. Applications were assessed and 10 projects were selected to receive a share of £300k.

University of Southampton – £30k – to lead on a project, working with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, to produce an online toolkit to help low income countries (LICs) redesign urban environments, particularly around schools with the aim of safeguarding vulnerable road users (namely children).

Amend.org – £28k – impact of the to Kids’ Court initiative – An innovative approach to speed enforcement in Mozambique’s largest city Maputo, which suffers from a poor road safety record. Partnering with the traffic police, drivers caught speeding may find themselves being questioned by child judges in the Kids’ Court.

Water Fuel Engineering – £30k – to retrofit prototype autonomous electrolysers onto buses in Hyderabad, India. The system splits water into its base parts; Hydrogen and Oxygen and delivers the Oxy-Hydrogen gas (HHO) directly into the engine enabling carbon fuel to burn more effectively and reducing carbon emissions by up to 80%. Performance of these vehicles will be monitored by the State Government and industry specialists.

Proxad Ltd – £30k – to fund a feasibility study in South Africa to evaluate the potential for real-time onward journey ride-matching technology. The aim is to provide a better ‘end-to-end’ train journey systemising existing transport services, such as shared minibuses for the first and last mile of a journey.

Nepal Commutiere – £30k – to aid a small startup that will utilise locally available parts and materials to provide low cost, pedal-assisted, battery-powered conversion kits and servicing to the community of 1,000 rickshaw pullers of Kathmandu and later to the tens of thousands of rickshaw pullers of Nepal.

Intrepid Minds Ltd – £25k – to support the Hubz project – an online tool and app to link the thousands of small business operators across South Africa with the capability to transport goods across a multi-modal network. The system uses geo-tagging to track the transport and delivery of goods.

My Smart Remote Ltd – £30k – to help fund a real-time driver’s sleep and distraction prevention system. In the US alone, mobile phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year, with over 3,300 deaths [1] and drowsy driving caused 72,000 crashes and 800 deaths in 2013 [2]. Smart Eye for Driver (SED) will generate an alert (audio on speakers or vibration alert on smart watch) whenever it find the eyes sleepy (closed) or distracted from the road.

Peter Davidson Consultancy Ltd – £30k – for research into the feasibility of developing a transport scheme business case tool including developing a prototype and market testing it. The aim is to reduce the amount of time spent on preparing the business case for transport scheme to weeks, not years, making it more likely that schemes will be developed and approved within electoral periods.

Echo Mobile – £28.5k – to fund a Kenyan SME to fit 60 minibuses travelling from Nairobi to other city centres in Kenya, with a GPS device to track unsafe driving. Passengers will then be informed about these safety ratings and researchers will aim to determine the extent to which passengers value safety, how it affects their decisions and whether transportation companies start to reform in response to increased pressures.

Integrated Transport Planning Ltd – £29.9k – to develop existing public transport modelling technology to analyse road networks. This allows detailed modelling of vehicle movements, seat capacity, and route availability. Users will be able to query services available by location, view busy and less trafficked streets, and identify which sections of a route cause delays.

Phil Davies, Marketing Director at Water Fuel Engineering said: “T-TRIID has enabled us to innovate, not only by funding a real world trial in the most polluted country on earth, but also by providing the expertise and framework in which our innovation and business model can be improved. They have helped us become exposed to a global market and specifically in those countries which can most benefit from the reduction in greenhouse gases that our technology offers.”

[1] National Safety Council
[2] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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