Innovation best practice for the UK’s railways: the Station Innovation Playbook
We collaborated with Network Rail and Connected Places Catapult to transform insights from the Station Innovation Zone at Bristol Temple Meads into a living, accessible microsite, enabling industry partners, policymakers, and practitioners to learn and innovate together.
Context and challenge
The Station Innovation Playbook is based on real-world lessons from piloting the Station Innovation Zone (SIZ) at Bristol Temple Meads, a collaboration between Connected Places Catapult, Network Rail Western Route, and Innovate UK.
Its aim:
- Support stakeholders from rail operators, regulatory bodies, suppliers, and authorities in setting up and running Station Innovation Zones — live testing zones for innovation in operational station environments.
- Share navigated barriers and operational insights from a five-year station-based innovation model, with updates expected through the programme’s duration up to 2028.
The challenge
- The existing playbook needed to be a content-rich resource, yet shareable and discoverable across diverse stakeholders.
- Static PDFs or siloed documents can’t adapt to evolving insights, be responsive, or support wider accessibility — limiting collaboration and uptake.
Our approach
Our role was to design the Station Innovation Playbook, turning the learnings from Bristol Temple Meads into a scalable resource.
Simple, clear structure: the playbook guides users through the five stages of establishing an innovation zone: Fundamentals, Propose, Prepare, Scouting, and Monitoring.
Modules and resources: each stage is broken down into manageable modules, supported by links to tools, templates, and downloads. This makes the playbook practical to use in real-world contexts: users can dip into the stage they’re working on, access exactly the resources they need, and progress step by step without being overwhelmed.
Learning in practice: a dedicated “Bristol Temple Meads Learning” section highlights practical insights from the first Station Innovation Zone.
Interface and layout: with large amounts of information to manage, we based the design on Government Digital Service (GDS) standards, providing a trusted framework capable of handling rich content without overwhelming users.
This approach created a resource that is easy to navigate, grounded in real-world experience, and designed to scale the SIZ model to stations across the UK.
Impact
By transforming the Station Innovation Playbook into an interactive experience, we’ve turned static guidance into an evolving, accessible resource.
It now supports stakeholders across the rail sector to adopt innovation zone practices, share lessons, and build a collaborative culture that extends well beyond Bristol Temple Meads.
Get in touch to see how Digital Innovation Toolkits can turn static content into dynamic, evolving resources that save time, engage stakeholders, and accelerate innovation.