The UK’s Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has announced that it will be hosting its third annual Imagine Festival on June 14-15 at the Imovation Centre in Milton Keynes, where leading minds from UK industry, research and government aim to uncover the future of transportation.
This year’s theme will be ‘Intelligent Mobility the future of transport today and tomorrow’, with the event being cross modal in its coverage, looking at road, air, rail and maritime, as well as reflecting new mobility solutions, such as driverless vehicles, ride sharing apps, and virtual mobility.
Attendees can expect to learn about new and emerging ways of using, planning and managing the movement of people and goods, as well as how the boundaries between transport modes could be broken down, in order to achieve seamless end-to-end journeys and discover how technologies such as autonomous vehicles, smartphones, data visualization and virtual reality will transform the experience of travel. Key areas being explored at this year’s festival include: cyber resilience, automated transport, driving UK Intelligent Mobility across the globe, and inward investment and export opportunities for UK business.
The event will be held at the TSC’s world-class Imovation Centre facility in Milton Keynes, which is currently hosting the LUTZ Pathfinder driverless pod trials. The facility has been specifically designed to develop smarter ways of moving people and goods, and features cutting edge IT infrastructure, simulation and modeling rooms, unique technology assets and collaborative spaces that help nurture new and innovative ideas. The TSC is encouraging anyone with an interest in technology and innovation, including SME’s entrepreneurs, innovators, technologists, business leaders, academics, and policy makers, to attend.
Speakers at the event include: Iain Forbes, head of the UK government’s Center for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles; Dr Siraj Ahmed Shaikh, reader in cybersecurity at Coventry University; and TSC’s chief technology officer, Dr Paul Zanelli. Alongside the conference, the Imagine Festival’s exhibition will allow attendees to get to grips with innovative and emerging technologies. The festival will also play host to the IMCreate2 Intelligent Mobility Hackathon showcase, where 100 data scientists, coders, business thinkers and creatives, will have 24 hours to solve eight transport challenges.
The TSC’s CEO, Steve Yianni, who is also speaking at the event, explained its significance: “The Imagine festival is about new thinking. It’s about taking a fresh look at the issues facing the UK transport market, and the traditional ways in which they are addressed, and asking Is there a better way? The result will be a vision of the future, based on the principles of intelligent mobility the smarter, greener, more efficient movement of people and goods. We will help people to understand how that movement is evolving toward an integrated service, and how people will travel in the future. This will transform the world around us. Put simply, the Imagine Festival is the place to be if you want to know what’s coming next in the world of transport.”
