2025 has certainly been a busy year for Pragmatex, as the team continued its support of SMEs and innovators from across the rail sector and building on its close collaboration with the industry, to make positive changes for the future of the network.
To delve into this further, we spoke to Trevor Bradbury, Director at Pragmatex, on the key achievements from this year and what we can expect from the team in 2026:
Hi Trevor, thanks for your time. What would you say has been a key highlight for the Pragmatex team in 2025?
Rail Live was undoubtedly a key highlight for the team. It was a really good way to check in on some of the companies we have crossed paths with like MoniRail, Tended, OnWave and RailSense, as well as check out the latest and greatest bits of kit.
There was no free burger this year, but the pizza was decent, and the weather was amazing. It was good to catch up with colleagues from Connected Places Catapult (CPC) and Network Rail. If you haven’t done so already, you can check out my short Rail Live video here and my deeper dive video into MoniRail, filmed at the event here.
Are there any projects that stand out to you and the team as key achievements this year?
This year saw the winding up of the First in Class team that has supported Network Rail R&D in moving some of their projects through to deployment (Rail Industry Readiness Level 7).
We’ve really enjoyed working alongside Network Rail’s R&D project managers and project sponsors over the last couple of years and have seen some successes (e.g. TrackWater deployment in Scotland) and some failures too. However, I think that is a good thing. The key learning being that there’s a massive difference between a technical trial of a technology and an operational trial, where it’s being used in anger to support railway staff in delivering the service for the public.
The gap from a technical trial to a meaningful operational deployment can be significant because it opens a whole new scope of work. How do we best deploy the solution, where should it be deployed first, how will it integrate with current working practices? How will it impact staff roles and responsibilities? Finally, fundamentally how do you realise the benefits the solution has to offer. These are non-trivial questions and working out the answers with colleagues from CPC and Network Rail was extremely rewarding.
We spoke earlier this year about the geofencing project. Can you give us an insight into how that is progressing?
I’m immensely proud of the work we have done over the last 18 months with CPC and Network Rail to support the introduction of Geofencing devices (portable tracking devices) to improve situational awareness on railway worksites.
When we started there were several geofencing solution suppliers including Tended and OnWave, who have tons of expertise and were offering geofencing to Network Rail as a service backed by their own proprietary hardware and software.
However, it became clear that there were certain situations where geofencing performance was diminished and this, coupled with the novelty of the technology to Network Rail, was creating a misalignment in what the technology could deliver and Network Rail’s expectations.
Through a phased and structured test programme, the work identified several areas for improvement from the suppliers and rebaselined Network Rail’s understanding of how to use the technology, developing new use cases in the process.
The future for this technology now looks secure, with new product acceptance certificates for Tended and OnWave’s solutions and new use cases like Virtual Worksite Markerboards being actively developed by Network Rail.
Another exciting piece of work this year for the team was the ‘Now and Next’ project with Journey Alerts. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Our involvement helping our friends at Journey Alerts deliver the “Now and Next” travel companion project was a great experience this year. The work entailed looking at how to reframe journey information in a clear and straightforward way, connecting you across public transport from leaving home to bus or tram, to train to your arrival.
It acted not only as a mode-agnostic travel planning tool, but also as a live journey companion, sending just the live information you needed to know right ‘Now’, and what was coming ‘Next’, framed in a highly visual way. Therefore, instead of the usual paragraphs of prose to wade through, you had simple information or instruction tiles coming to you on the mobile device of your choice.
A lot of work went into the development of the visual language, and how to best represent complex environments such as large railway stations, keeping it as “simple as possible, but no simpler” as someone clever once said.
You exhibited for the first time at the RIA Innovation Conference back in March, how did you find that experience?
Pretty much anyone who was there should have a lovely Pragmatex ballpoint pen kicking around somewhere after some guerrilla marketing tactics from Howard, who dropped Pragmatex pens off all over the exhibition hall.
We’ll be back again in 2026 in Wales, so come and find us if you are going next year. In terms of the sessions, the GBRX talk from Toufic Machnouk was worth hanging on for on the last day. It was a genuinely informative session and a good window into the future of innovation in rail.
Have you done anything new this year?
This year we’ve started to create some video content. We’re not going to be rivalling Mr Beast anytime soon, but our hope is that there is an audience for some longer format and more technical videos that take a deeper dive into some of the technologies and companies that cross our path.
We’ve also created some videos this year for rail SME’s MoniRail and EneRail. It’s a bit of a learning curve for us to see what works and what doesn’t work. If you have a railway innovation, I’m keen to hear from you so we can produce more deep dive technical videos in 2026.
What thoughts do you have looking ahead to 2026?
Looking ahead to 2026, I’m hopeful that there might be a bit more investment in rail innovation across the board, despite 2026 being another transition year before GBR is up and running in 2027.
It doesn’t really matter how the railway is organised; innovation will always have a role to play in driving the industry forward, developing domestic industries and driving UK exports. There’s such a wealth of knowledge and talent in the UK as well as an abundance of friction, that can at times feel insurmountable.
I believe 2025 has shown that with the right approach, it’s possible to get things moving, to deploy technology into the railway and succeed. For me, next year feels like it will be one where Pragmatex and our partners can really make a difference, shepherding great solutions over the second valley of death and into deployment.
Which just leaves all of us at Pragmatex to thank all our friends and partners from across the industry and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a joy-filled New Year!
Thanks for your detailed analysis of the year, Trevor. If you are planning for 2026 and would like to arrange a conversation with the Pragmatex team, get in touch with the team here.
