$4.15M ORBIT project puts private 5G on Blackpool's trams and buses
What's the deal? VIAVI SolutionsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has joined ORBIT, a roughly $4.15 million project led by Blackpool Council to deploy a private standalone 5G network across the town's trams and buses. VIAVI contributes digital-twin technology to test network performance before live trials. Other partners include the University of York and Hitachi Rail.
What's the endgame? The project aims to prove that multi-vendor Open RAN equipment can work reliably as a complete system. VIAVI's digital twin models performance virtually ahead of real-world deployment.
The policy angle: ORBIT is funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Innovate UK, part of the government's push to turn 5G trials into repeatable deployments through its 5G Innovation Regions programme.
Why now? Transport operators across the UK are testing private 5G for telematics, CCTV, and diagnostics. Belfast's Translink buses already run such a network, and a separate East West Rail project is trialling one too — but no standard commercial model has emerged.
What could go wrong? The core challenge is interoperability: proving that equipment from different vendors functions together reliably. That remains unproven at scale, and the trials must show measurable operational benefits to justify wider rollout.
The signal: The significance here is less about adding 5G to one fleet than testing whether Open RAN can work as a full system. ORBIT's planned interoperability reports and reference architecture could prove useful well beyond Blackpool if the demonstrations deliver.
Read more: viavisolutions.com
Image credit: 70023venus2009
