AN engineering designer who hopes to revolutionise transport in the UK has won a government grant towards building a working model of his vehicle.

Carl Henderson, of Skeeby, near Richmond, has been working on devising an integrated system which would see vehicles run on tram and rail lines as well as normal roads.

He has designed a pivotal bogie which allows lorries to take up less road width when turning and the £45,000 Smart Award grant from the Department of Trade and Industry will help fund the building of a one-eighth scale vehicle to demonstrate the concept.

The scale model could go on show at Northallerton railway exhibition in September and Mr Henderson, who runs Silvertip Design, hopes to have a £2m full-scale vehicle built in three years' time.

He is also investigating a system which would see people and freight carried as efficiently as possible, using vehicles capable of switching smoothly from road to rail at speed.

The universities of Northumbria and Lancaster are undertaking some of the research towards Mr Henderson's goal.

"The wagon I built last year is also being assessed by Cambridge university and they are presenting a paper to Delft university, in Holland, in June," he said.

He also hopes to produce a documentary film about his work later this year.

Smart Awards are aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses research and develop technologically innovative products and processes.

Other winners were Pembroke McIntyre Associates, of Great Broughton, which is developing a wallpaper cutting system, and York-based Revolution Software, which is working on a way of giving new realism to virtual characters in computer games.