Karina Ricks will lead Alstom’s Innovation Station in Pittsburgh. Alstom
PITTSBURGH — Alstom will open its first U.S. Innovation Station in Pittsburgh, the company has announced. It will join similar facilities in Montreal, Paris, Stockholm, and Singapore.
The new facility will be alongside the company’s global development center for signaling and train control in Pittsburgh. It is intended to provide a location where transit agencies, cities, universities, technology centers, start-ups, and others can identify and develop new ideas.
“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 in a press release. “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.”
The U.S. facility will be directed by Karina Ricks, who previously was an associate administrator for innovation at the Federal Transit Administration, and was the founding director of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure. Most recently, she was a partner at Cityfi, a consulting firm focused on future developments in urban life and mobility.
“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.”
Alstom featured two products fostered at other Innovation Stations at September’s InnoTrans trade show in Berlin: a system to operate trains remotely [see “InnoTrans displays innovation in automation,” Trains.com, Sept. 25, 2026] and an artificial intelligence system to help troubleshoot and resolve maintenance issues on rail vehicles. The latter system was also displayed at the APTA Expo in Chicago earlier this month.
— To report news or errors, contact trainsnewswire@firecrown.com.
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