HS2 and Crossrail site to deliver high-tech innovations

The Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), which will become the home to both an HS2 and Crossrail station, has joined forces with HyperCatCity to deliver high-tech innovations.

OPDC was launched by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson in April 2015 to drive regeneration of the site, with the aim of embracing technological advances to boost the economy.

The site, which will hold a new station handling 250,000 passengers a day, has teamed up with HyperCatCity, a collaboration of organisations driving the smart cities agenda, to create a strategy embracing the use of smart technologies.

OPDC’s chief executive, Victoria Hills, said the partnership will “explore and encourage technology, innovation and smarter approaches to help plan, design, build and finance the UK’s largest regeneration project”.

The aim is to create “an exciting and thriving place” where people wish to live and work, according to Hills, who added: “Where innovation and smarter technology can be used to deliver an end goal, that is what we’ll be encouraging.”

To achieve that, the collaboration will look at ways of delivering new developments and parks, including exploring how streets can be designed to accommodate technological innovations such as driverless cars.

HyperCatCity has also opened a smart cities accelerator hub backed by several organisations, including Innovate UK, the Mayor of London’s office, OPDC, BT, Cisco and KPMG.

The accelerator will bring together organisations with experience in smart cities and will work on a range of challenges including smart utilities infrastructure, access to data and technology-enabled health and social care. 

Mayor Boris Johnson launched a London Tech Ambassadors Group in 2014 as part of his vision to make London the technology capital of the world.