London Midland is a train operating company owned by the Go Ahead Group. London Midland's services are divided between four groups of routes: London Euston Routes; Birmingham Regional, West Midlands Local and Branch Lines.
18 months ago the senior team at London Midland decided it wanted to become more innovative and find new ways that it could improve its customer experience. With 75 million journeys a year on their network they felt a responsibility to drive forward new ways to help reinvent the future of transport for everyone.
So London Midland created the LM Labs Accelerator, the first of its kind in the train sector. They believe great ideas come from a variety of places including smaller, lean companies who spot the pain points and can act on them quickly. The aim is to work with a number of innovative tech start-ups in the mobility space across a 12 week period (followed by an additional three months of incubation support / free office space) providing them with the expert mentoring and support they need to progress their businesses and achieve their joint aim of 'Simply Better Journeys.'
In addition to the benefits that are on offer from most startup accelerator programmes, London Midland also want to introduce SMEs to key stakeholders in the rail industry so they can provide quick product validation, access to customers and potential partnerships. This is ground-breaking for the rail sector where the choice of suppliers is limited due to general industry procurement rules.
Ian McLaren, Finance and Contracts Director at London Midland said:
"This is a fantastic and unique opportunity for startups looking to break into the Rail sector to learn from us and for us to learn from them. It is a true collaboration geared at delivering better service and greater passenger satisfaction."
