Mobility company Alstom recently announced it had launched its first Innovation Station in the United States.
The station, located in Pittsburgh alongside Alstom’s global development center for signaling and train control. The Innovation station will sit alongside Alstom’s global development center and joins four other Alstom stations in Paris, Stockholm, Singapore and Montreal. The station will be led by Karina Ricks, officials said and will connect transit agencies, cities, startups, universities and industry partners to advance sustainable mobility solutions and strengthen collaboration across the North American mobility ecosystem.
“To solve today’s mobility challenges we need to bring together the best ideas across sectors, disciplines, and communities,” Michael Keroullé, president of Alstom Americas, said. “Building on what we’ve learned from our stations elsewhere in the world, this new hub will allow us to work side by side with the U.S. transportation sector’s leading thinkers and innovators, including our own people, to advance real solutions and sustainable economic growth.”
Officials said the Innovation Stations create dedicated spaces for collaboration where partners and participants identify promising local ideas, accelerate the development of creative solutions and provide a platform to test and incubate new concepts with potential for global impact. Designed around a “local for global” approach, Alstom’s U.S. Innovation Station will focus on developing mobility solutions to improve accessibility, sustainability, and resiliency.
Previous examples of the innovation stations’ productions include a system engineered in partnership with Deutsche Bahn to operate trains remotely from a control center, that debuted at the InnoTrans transportation tradeshow in Berlin in September, and a new tool, AI Talk to My Train, an AI-driven solution to help with maintenance and troubleshooting on rail vehicles that debuted at APTA EXPO in Chicago in October.
“Innovation happens when governments, communities, and industry come together around shared challenges,” Ricks said. “Alstom’s newest Innovation Station will create a space where transit agencies, cities, researchers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders can collaborate on practical solutions that improve mobility today while shaping the transportation systems of tomorrow. I am excited to help build partnerships that accelerate innovation, expand opportunity and deliver meaningful benefits for passengers and communities.”