Data and Digital Technologies in Rail

DATA AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

About RIA

The Railway Industry Association (RIA) is the voice of the UK rail supply community. We help to grow a sustainable, high-performing, railway supply industry, and to export UK rail expertise and products. RIA has over 350 companies in membership in a sector that contributes £43 billion in economic growth and £14 billion in tax revenue each year, as well as employing 710,000 people. It is also a vital industry for the UK’s economic recovery, supporting green investment and jobs in towns and communities across the UK; for every £1 spent in rail, £2.50 is generated in the wider economy1. RIA’s membership is active across the whole of railway supply, covering a diverse range of products and services and including both multi-national companies and SMEs (60% by number).

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FOREWORD

Back in 2017, The Economist published a story with the heading: ‘The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.’ 2

Yet in all walks of life, not just in Silicon Valley, it has become more commonplace to see the simplified version:

‘Data is the new oil.’

However, oil is running out. Production will wind down, and the value of an increasingly scarce resource will go up accordingly. In contrast, data volumes, and the capability of digital techniques, continue to grow exponentially, as Gordon Moore first predicted in 1965 with his famous law3 . The cost of obtaining, processing, and using data is headed in exactly the opposite direction to oil. Rail is busy making its transition away from oil, but it is likely that data will be here forever, and in ever greater volumes.

Data may fuel industries, but unlike oil it is not expended – it is renewable. Data can be copied, shared, or sold, and the original owner still retains a full tank. Value is created through what can be derived from the data, not the data itself, and this value varies wildly between organisations. Paradoxically, value can even be generated by giving it away – the rail supply sector can provide great examples of that, some of which are set out in this report. Perhaps we should say ‘data is the new solar’!

Perhaps most philosophically, whilst oil has driven ‘dirty’ growth throughout the late 20th century, in the 21st it is likely that data and digital technologies will drive decarbonisation efforts that are vital to the fight against climate change. Enabling, but as important, encouraging the modal shift of passengers and freight to rail – the greenest and most inclusive transport mode – will be key in this regard.

Furthermore, oil products are universally standardised and understood. Drivers fill their cars at any service station without bother, and gas boilers kept fire all winter. Data, and especially railway data, is not so. There is a huge amount of work to do in combining disparate data sets, through standardisation and interfacing, and even more in interpreting any outputs to realise benefits.

This leads to the next point which is, if four barrels of oil are placed next to each other, you have four adjacent barrels of oil. Combine four data sources and the results can impact whole societies, commercial landscapes, and industries. Experts consulted during the production of this paper felt that rail is on the cusp of such an event. It won’t happen overnight; it will take longer: it will be the railway’s Digital Decade4

That is why this paper is timely. In some areas, digital techniques are outpacing railways, and in others, key customer-facing and operational systems – upon which the whole industry relies – are expiring, existing only on constant life support.

RIA members have made significant investments in digital capabilities and are poised to support the industry through its digital transition. They are ready to deliver tangible benefits to clients and customers, and the size of the prize is unimaginable. However, to enable this change, there are a range of pressing issues and priorities which need to be addressed by all – including Government, Treasury, clients, and our members. This paper acts to highlight these in the hope that we, as an industry, can move forward together and get it ‘right first time’. It is RIA’s view that in the next decade there is the opportunity to transform our industry performance and the customer offer using data. It will see a transformation in digital signalling, operational data and our retail offer, all of which we will explore in RIA’s Digital Decade Campaign over the next few years.

This paper has been prepared with the extensive assistance of the RIA membership and the counsel of experts from across the industry, to give a balanced overview. On behalf of the RIA team, I would like to thank all those who have helped create it, and hope that it helps guide our industry towards delivering the digitised railway our customers deserve.

Milda Manomaityte, Innovation Director

Milda Manomaityte, Innovation Director, Railway Industry Association

The rapid development of digital and deep technologies is already affecting our railway systems. Recently we have seen remote condition monitoring being introduced where manual inspection was limited due to lockdown. We have seen new timetables being rolled out at record speeds, and collaboration between different stakeholders has increased aided by the convenience of virtual meetings.

While working on our Railway Innovation Strategy last year, it became clear that many innovations rely on the availability of good quality data, people who understand how to utilise this data, and organisations that enable the use of data and digital technologies.

Therefore, through winter 2022 we have engaged our membership to understand the needs, opportunities, and challenges for better adoption of digital technologies in the railway industry. From this engagement we have developed six asks of Government, policy makers and clients, to enable, expediate and ensure the success of the UK railway’s digital transition over the Digital Decade.

To underpin the asks, this document looks at the past, present and the future of the digital railway.

The railway industry has been using digital techniques in its signalling systems since the Victorian era, with complex interlockings being developed as a digital state machine. More recently, the rollout of in-cab

signalling – ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) and ETCS (European Train Control System) –has been re-branded the ‘digital railway’, to properly capture what the initiative is trying to achieve in the hearts and minds of the public, whilst dropping some of the jargon that is pervasive to our industry.

Today there are many initiatives to support our railways entering the Digital Decade. Those include the Rail Sector Deal and the creation of the Rail Data Marketplace for better data sharing and access. The Rail Technical Strategy offers a future technologies roadmap outlined in the five Functional Priorities, and UKRRIN’s Centre of Excellence for Digital Systems supports cutting-edge research and development in this field, not to mention the plethora of expertise and experience in our supply chain.

All these and many more initiatives align with the wider Government ambitions and strategies around data, Artificial Intelligence and cyber security.

We imagine the railway of the future – full of smart sensors feeding information into data lakes for AI systems to optimise maintenance and operations. A railway fit for its users and fully integrated in the wider transport system.

To better expand on our six asks, we have shared direct feedback from our members, represented under each ask, sharing our members’ challenges, suggestions and thoughts that helped us develop this document.

RIA’s six key asks:

To enable, expediate and ensure the success of the UK railway’s digital transition, RIA has six clear asks of Government, policymakers and clients. We want to start a conversation with all parties about these issues and collaborate to identify the specific action that different organisations will need to commit to. The remainder of the document is dedicated to exploring them.

1. The railway’s digital transition requires leadership, strategy, and action, starting now.

The UK railways will undergo a digital transition. Nobody, neither customers, suppliers, nor clients can afford to wait until years after the formation of Great British Railways to have strong cross-industry leadership, to define a strategy, or for solid commitment to the correct change and investment.

2. The UK workforce need to be empowered: through upskilling and creating the right culture. Technology does not exist in a vacuum. At the heart of every process, digital or otherwise, are people. Railways need a cross-industry drive to ensure our people have the right skills for the new digital world, and we need to empower those people through widespread cultural and organisational change to reap the full rewards.

3. Every organisation should place customers at the heart of everything it does and remain receptive to change.

The freight or passenger customer of the 2020s is not the customer of the 1990s, and the customer of the 2030s will have even greater service and information expectations. The world is forever changing. Collaboratively, across the clientsupplier interface, we need to constantly ensure our offering reflects these expectations.

4. Invest in Innovation. Invest In Implementation. The railway is an experienced creator and user of data; however, digital capabilities are evolving at what would have been, decades ago, an unthought of pace. The industry needs to open itself up to different ideas from new and experienced innovators both in rail and other industries. This will require investment in innovation, implementation, and the business changes that go with it.

5. Operations and maintenance must embrace the digital future. There is an inevitability that maintenance and operations will change as more and more data – and subsequent asset and state knowledge – becomes available. However, this knowledge should not be treated as an additional extra. To reap the full benefits, digital techniques need to be core business activities. This means building in digital approaches from the ground up and designing assets, operations, and maintenance around them.

6. Collaboration and openness are vital, and this starts with clients. The East Coast Digital Programme is demonstrating what can be achieved through close supply chain collaboration with an open and agile client. This could be used as a model for other digital rollouts, with clients encouraged to be open in sharing their opportunities, challenges and needs. The sharing of robust datasets through appropriate channels should be built into procurement and service contracts to ensure compliance across supply chain.

Further recommendations

Within RIA’s key asks, we make a number of recommendations which are direct, actionable items that could make a short-term improvement to the UK’s railways and its customers. They are:

• There are many competing interests in the data and digital world, and not all are for the benefit of the railway or its customers. RIA therefore thinks a whole-industry strategy should be created by a neutral body, appointed to take a cross-industry and cross-supply chain view. The UKRRIN Digital Systems Centre of Excellence may be ideally placed to provide this review.

• Existing initiatives such as the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) and UKRRIN are ideally placed to support skills and cultural change activities. Their role needs to be championed and funding guaranteed, independently of political changes.

• There is often a disconnect between the mindset and understanding of agile startups and of larger organisations. Our industry may benefit from training staff in both to have a better understanding of the processes, structure, and concerns of the other.

• Regarding innovation funding, our ask is simple and twofold. Firstly, ringfence investment for innovation rollout across client organisations, including organisational change and upskilling. Secondly, assign a significant proportion of funding to radical innovation.

• Targets, challenges, and measures of current performance must be clear and made available to allow an understanding of areas where innovation can bring benefits. This must include sharing what data could be available should it be required, even if the mechanism to share it is not yet able.

Challenge statements are a positive step. However, they need to be supported by teams and individuals who are empowered to make changes and have budgets associated for rollout of successfully demonstrated innovations, alongside an indication of the ‘size of the prize’ in order for private sector investment decisions to be made.

INTRODUCTION

Why Now?

The early 2020s is a critical crossroads for the UK rail industry. Wide societal and behavioural changes, including those imparted by COVID19, the Williams review and subsequent formation (delayed or otherwise) of Great British Railways, the implementation of Brexit and a sprinkling of political turmoil have all contributed to a general feeling of ‘what could the future hold’. However, if we need an indication of the importance of railways, we can just look to our customers.

Freight has gone from strength to strength, with volumes increasing and even overtaking the prepandemic levels5 . Passenger numbers are now back to a consistent 79-103% of pre-COVID19 levels, despite the predicted change of travel patterns, disruptions due to industrial action or severe weather impact6 . Daily transport use statistics, published by the Department for Transport, show that passengers are quick to return to the railways even after major disruptions7

Even before the global lockdowns, data and digital technologies were changing the world at a pace that it was challenging to keep up. During the COVID19 pandemic, however, when many people could not physically go to work and perform their duties, this technological advancement and the accompanying behavioural change exploded in all areas of life, including the railways. We have seen remote condition monitoring being introduced where manual inspection was limited due to lockdown. We have seen new timetables being rolled out at record speeds, and collaboration between different stakeholders

has increased aided by the convenience of virtual meetings.

During this time the voices grew stronger asking for a quicker adoption of innovation. This is why last year RIA published A Railway Innovation Strategy8 , a crossindustry document highlighting six key asks to enable better roll out and scale up of innovation into our railways.

While working on this strategy it became clear that many innovations rely on the availability of good quality data, people who understand how to utilise this data, and organisations that enable the use of data and digital technologies.

Our method in preparing this paper was inclusive of stakeholders across industry. We started with a brainstorming session, identifying benefits, concerns and issues which had been raised over the preceding few years. This was followed by a survey, which ran over the winter of 2022. In early 2023, we have interviewed key personnel of all seniority, members, and clients. The feedback from all these activities was combined into a first draft, upon which our membership was then invited to read and suggest changes. We were unable to highlight every single point raised, but happy to discover a broad and strong cross-industry consensus on several issues, which have formed the core of our key asks.

As was the case with the innovation strategy, we hope that this paper proves useful to policy makers, Government, funding bodies and, of course, our membership, alike.

A

Railway Innovation Strategy: Getting ready for Great British Railways

RIA’s 2022 paper, ‘A Railway Innovation Strategy’8 explored innovation within our industry and the barriers to getting new products and services into the railway network. It underlines that more collaboration is needed to help businesses bring news ideas to market more quickly. It is also noted that a culture of innovation will be required to create a more costefficient, sustainable, and accessible network for passengers under GBR – and that there should be a guiding mind for this.

It also emphasised the benefits that investment in railway innovation can bring. For example, it is estimated that Network Rail’s £245m Research and Development funding between 2019 and 2024 will create a gross value added of £1.6bn over 20 years.

The strategy sets out six key asks for the Government and the rail industry to consider:

1. Increase Government investment in rail research, development, and innovation.

2. Strengthen support during the innovation rollout phase.

3. Lead a concerted cross-industry effort to identify and overcome barriers to successful adoption.

4. Provide a pathway and funding for radical innovation.

5. The railway must adopt a whole-system and long-term view to enable the right innovation.

6. Support skills development and the creation of an innovation culture.

THE PAST

Rail: A pioneer of digital technologies

‘Digital’ – in its purest meaning, means a system which performs logic in terms of two states – ‘on’ and ‘off’, or ‘1’ and ‘0’. Data is sequences or streams of these logical states.

The railway, therefore, was a trendsetter! Long before ChatGPT, 5G smartphones, e-tickets, digital TV or indeed even the humble monochrome VDU, and whilst we were still burning coal for traction during the Victorian era, our signalling systems were using digital techniques in cutting edge train and points detection to keep our passengers safe. The design of ever more complex interlockings, which are a digital state machine (though not a true computer in the Turing machine 9 sense) became a science. People, beyond of course those with more than a passing interest in rail technology, were probably none the wiser as to the ‘digital’ techniques in use behind the scenes.

The development of true – i.e. reprogrammable –computer technology during the 1950s and ’60s eventually led to the word ‘digital’ becoming more widely used in society to mean ‘computing’10 . Through this period UK railways remained at the cutting edge operationally. TOPS (Total Operations Processing System), for example, is a very early example of a digital business system rolled out nationally as ‘a single source of truth’ in the late 1960s. SSI (Solid State Interlocking), developed in the 1970s and ’80s took the latest computing techniques and developed them for application to safety critical infrastructure. SSI is programmed with a dataset representing a logical decision map – a true Turing machine. SSI was a success at home, and a popular export, remaining in use worldwide.

More recently, the rollout of in-cab signalling – ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) and ETCS (European Train Control System) – has been

re-branded the ‘digital railway’, to properly capture what the initiative is trying to achieve in the hearts and minds of the public, whilst dropping some of the jargon that is pervasive to our industry. Digital, in this sense, mainly refers to the digital communication technologies upon which such techniques are based, digitally transmitting the correct data to the cab for the direct interpretation of the driver.

Signalling generally doesn’t require a lot of processing power, but decisions need to be guaranteed correct for safe operation, so it presents some unique challenges. In theory the safety critical signalling processing for the whole UK network could run on a single average ninth generation video game console of the late 2020s, costing around £400. In the same vein, the Apollo guidance computer used in the ’60s and ’70s moon landings could run on an average ’80s pocket calculator. This rapid advance in processing power, the corresponding reduction in its cost and increase in its portability, is broadly governed by Moore’s law3 , which predicts that the computing power available on a microchip doubles every 2 years.

The impacts of Moore’s Law led to the widespread societal changes which we have witnessed since the adoption of IT in the ’70s and ’80s. It will continue to change society for the foreseeable future, with no signs of slowing down. This growth of computing power makes technology from each decade almost unrecognisable from the last. Most importantly, it has three main effects on the railway, and its customers:

• The list of ‘things we can do’ is ever growing, and there is no single source of truth about our current capabilities.

The list of ‘things we could do’ is growing more rapidly; and we will never know every item on this list.

• The expectations of our customers around what we can and could do are growing the quickest of all, and future projections of these present the greatest unknowns.

Taking the first point: in recent years our industry has deployed data and digital technologies at a rate never seen before. Examples of both customer-facing (e.g., e-ticketing, delay information, communications) and back-office (e.g., remote condition monitoring, live timetables in disruption) are plentiful and some are featured in the case studies section at the back of this document.

However, every deployed technology, and every advance in computing, opens many more opportunities than it is possible to list – the evergrowing list of things that we could do. The items on this list aren’t all in one place – they span organisations, disciplines, and the client/supplier interface. No one entity knows – or will ever know – all the things we

Data and Digital: Definitions

Data (noun)

1. a plural of datum.

2. individual facts, statistics, or items of information.

3. information in digital format, as encoded text or numbers, or multimedia images, audio, or video.

4. a body of facts; information:

Digital (adjective)

1. displaying a readout in numerical digits rather than by a pointer or hands on a dial.

2. of, relating to, or using numerical calculations.

3. of, relating to, or using data in the form of numerical digits.

4. involving or using numerical digits expressed in a scale of notation, usually in the binary system, to represent discretely all variables occurring in a problem.

5. available in electronic form; readable and manipulable by computer.

Source: www.dictionary.com

could do, not least because this requires knowledge of what data sources are accessible and sharable. Sharing an outline of what data exists in each organisation, if not the data itself, therefore forms part of one of our asks. The outcome of such an exercise would indicate what outcomes are achievable, versus those which are desired.

Finally, this brings us to the expectations of our customers – both passenger and freight. These are already changing immeasurably based on what could be achieved. We have no crystal ball – the future customer expectations and aspirations for rail are impossible to predict. We can, however, look outside the railway to see how changing usage patterns, based on digital ubiquity, have caused wholesale shifts in other industries. Later, in ‘The Future’ section, we will have a ‘Tomorrow’s World’ moment emphasising the opportunities on offer: RIA’s digital railway of the future. But first, let us examine where we are today –within and outside the railway.

THE PRESENT

On the cusp of the Railway’s Digital Decade

The Government’s management and oversight of railways is undergoing a very public transition, as the principles outlined in the Williams review11 are being developed and turned into structure. The review mentions data multiple times and includes a very explicit data objective:

An ‘open by default’ approach to data will be introduced, with common frameworks and standards across the sector created and led by a new Rail Data Service within Great British Railways. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, 2021 11

The Rail Sector Deal, the Government and Industry partnership instigated in 2018, is to deliver improvements in 3 areas:

The passenger experience.

The economy.

The railway industry supply chain.

The Rail Sector Deal12 is strong in its focus in Digital Technology, with digital signalling and traffic management systems stated as being the core components for resolving the capacity problems on the current network.

The Rail Sector Deal also led to the creation, and supplied match funding, for the Rail Data

Easy to use for all

Rail will deliver an excellent travel experience to regular and occasional passengers thanks to dependable real-time information, innovative payment methods, and improved solutions for accessibility.

Low emissions

Carbon and air emissions will be minimised by cheaper and less disruptive electrification, zero-carbon diesel replacement, greater efficiency and removing emissions at source.

Optimised train operations

Train services will be highly reliable and the capacity of the network improved by realtime management, better train planning and simulation, and shorter headways together with new solutions at nodes.

Reliable and easy to maintain

Reliability and availability will be maximised by design, remote and automatic inspection, and targeted interventions, while whole-life cost is reduced.

Data Driven

Data, recognised as a highly valuable asset, will have fit for purpose governance, access arrangements, systems and technical skills.

The Rail Technical Strategy

Data and Digital Technologies in Rail: Industry needs, opportunities, and priorities

March 2023

World-renowned expertise of the UKRRIN CEDS

The Centre focuses on all aspects of digital railway innovation, providing a system-wide approach to transforming research, development, and innovation. Technical transformations have a part to play in the delivery of a more cost-effective, customer and carbon-friendly railway that delivers more capacity safely. The development of the CEDS in these areas allows the railway industry to ‘get there sooner’, thus improving the industry’s bottom line and reputation, as well as supporting the UK’s export agenda.

Future Railway Operations and Control

• Simulator development

• Traffic management

• System optimisation

Simulation and testing for integration

Hardware and humans in-the-loop

Next generation(s) of control systems and railway digitisation

Data integration and cyber security

• Controlled access to national and international data

• Data modelling and architecture

Marketplace13 . The Rail Data Marketplace is envisaged as a platform for industry data to be shared within the railways and across transport modes, enabling innovation and new customer focussed products. The Williams review reinforces the focus on open data being available and the benefits that it will bring.

In parallel to the Rail Sector Deal, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), working for the industry, and the Government agreed the Joint Rail Data Action Plan14 in 2018, which outlines the steps needed to improve the quality and openness of rail data.

The Rail Technical Strategy (RTS)15 , most recently updated in 2020 by a group comprising Network Rail, Industry and the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) can be considered the closest our industry has to a technology roadmap around data and digital priorities. It is maintained as a live website and identifies five Functional Priorities for the Railway to deliver for its customers both present and future. One of these priorities explicitly covers the topic: Data Driven and is described as core to the RTS. However, digital techniques heavily influence the

• Integration of operations and customer-facing systems

Data-driven railway

Security and analysis of cyber threats

Smart Monitoring and Autonomous Systems

Next generations of smart condition monitoring

Interconnected sensing systems

Innovations in sensors and sensing

Intelligent, robotic and autonomous systems

Innovative self-learning systems

Real-time scheduling systems

Machine learning

Introducing Innovation

Road-mapping of benefit realisation

Alignment of stakeholders for rapid technology adoption

• Identification of benefits and structuring stakeholder incentives

• System integration testing to speed up approval

other 4 priorities, and can therefore be seen as core underpinning technologies.

Underpinning the development of the rail technical strategy is academic study – with expertise in a large part provided by UKRRIN, the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network16 . UKRRIN is formed of several centres of excellence, each of which comprises a number of universities and industrial partners with strengths in the relevant areas. The Centre of Excellence in Digital Systems (CEDS) in particular is heavily involved in rail’s digital transition, worldwide17

The RDG have established the Rail Data Council18 as a mechanism to avoid overlap and increase the pace of the above plans and objectives. The council has representation from a wide group of stakeholders across the Industry, and has 4 working groups under the headings: Marketplace, Governance, Value, and Innovation & Culture. The Rail Data Market Place falls under the oversight of the council.

Also supporting the above plans and objectives, the RSSB Data and Information System Interface Committee (DISIC)19 is the focus for governance,

20

management and exploitation of data, information and knowledge.

The Great British Railways Transition Team, who are the delivery function responsible for the implementation of the Williams Review, are developing a long-term strategy for Rail, previously known as the Whole Industry Strategic Plan (WISP).

In the Whole Industry Strategic Plan – Call for Evidence Summary Report, published in June 2022, data featured strongly as an answer to four of the six questions:

• strategic Objectives for the whole rail industry,

• Meeting customers’ needs,

• delivering financial sustainability, and

• contributing to long-term

economic growth

RIA responded to this call on behalf of our members, strongly citing digital technologies.

Government policy regarding railway infrastructure for England and Wales, published in the High Level Output Specification 2022 (HLOS)21 has specific requirements for the implementation of digital signalling: A transition to an ETCS enabled railway through the replacement at renewal of conventional signalling and, where possible, cab fitment work to be progressed in advance of future control period fundings for signalling. The strategy in Scotland is not so clear, following the publication of the Scottish HLOS in February 202322 , however digital signalling will still play a part in the future of Scottish Railways. Whilst significantly important to the digitalisation of

RIA’s Submission to the Transport Select Committee, Our Future Transport campaign, February 2023

In the beginning of 2023, Transport Select Committee ran an enquiry looking at which innovations deserve attention, and what the impact of new and disruptive trends and technologies might be across all modes of transport in the future. RIA’s submissions to the transport select committee in February 2023 included significant content related to Rail’s digital transition. The Transport Committee received a total of 227 proposals and RIA’s submission has been selected for an in-person interview in May 2023.

Realising the benefits of data and digital transformation for rail

It is hard to understate the opportunities for technology to transform the performance, cost and customer experience of the railway. These transformative technologies already exist – they are not speculative:

Digital signalling is already being installed on parts of the network and is already showing potential to unlock a safer railway with higher density passenger and freight usage and lower installation and maintenance costs.

New trains come equipped with sensors that can measure every aspect of performance, allowing technical problems to be anticipated and targeted, before they stop services running.

• Remote asset monitoring technology can detect small changes in infrastructure condition allowing much more targeted maintenance, reducing costs and improving performance.

• Real time train and passenger data, combined with journey apps make personalised information, and user feedback, a reality. A fully digitalised railway creates the possibility for customers – both freight and passengers – to plan and complete end to end journeys linking with other forms of public transport.

Combined with rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, these technologies present an even greater opportunity for whole network management to optimise performance. For example, by knowing the instantaneous state of the network as disruption occurs, a future AI assisted network could immediately derive the optimum next steps, modifying routes and stopping patterns with the changes then passed to the passenger, or freight customer, through smartphones or passenger information screens.

Realising the benefits requires vision, longterm planning and investment in skills and infrastructure. This has to start now. New skills are needed to install, operate and exploit the technologies to their full extent. The ability to work with data and AI will be fundamental to the future of rail.

New practices in data management, ensuring compatibility but protecting cyber security will be critical. Open access to data across functional boundaries will have to be negotiated, to allow innovation to breed further innovation.

When we get data wrong: the May 2018 Timetabling Fiasco

In May 2018, a new timetable was implemented across the UK Network. The timetable aimed to take full advantage of the completion of Thameslink, its digital signalling, and the resultant capacity and reliability increases.

Unfortunately, despite the best intentions, the outcome was not a good one: with mass delays, cancellations and – deservedly – some very bad press for our industry.

A three-month ORR inquiry followed23 which found that Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Northern, the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) all made mistakes, which contributed to the collapse of services, particularly on the GTR and Northern routes. These were largely the result of the focus upon data, rather than the human element: There were sufficient train drivers, but not enough trained on the right rolling stock and the right route. A targeted data analysis, perhaps underpinned by robust simulation with results interpreted by empowered leadership, may have been able to avert the disaster.

A key issue found by the inquiry was that there is an apparent gap in industry responsibility and

accountability for managing systemic risks, and this would need to change as a matter of urgency.

By contrast, in Scotland, with an integrated leadership and direct accountability lines, the late delivery of a new train fleet prompted ScotRail to delay the introduction of its own new timetable, meaning when the fleet and timetable was eventually launched, it was correspondingly successful from day one. The fragmented English system prevented such pragmatic decisions.

ORR, September 201823

The ORR concluded that a body with full oversight, and with direct responsibility for such matters, may have acted sooner to prevent the fiasco. There are many RIA members close to the topic who feel that this situation has not significantly improved.

This event was one of several triggers for WilliamsShapps review11 .

A key issue, found by the inquiry, is that there is an apparent gap in industry responsibility and accountability for managing systemic risks, and that needs to change.

Digital Signalling

Digital signalling is a fundamental and wholesale change to one of the core components of the railway. The East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) will be a first-of-type UK retrofit on a busy, mixed-traffic mainline route24 . RIA welcomes the continued financial and political support for this vital upgrade to our infrastructure and rolling stock.

Whilst Digital signalling is one of the many technologies which we will see make radical transformations to railway operations and maintenance in the near term, we have purposefully excluded it from this paper, as:

• A cross-industry, supported and funded strategy is already developed for its rollout through the LTDP (Long Term Deployment Plan)25

the railway, signalling is not being directly referenced in this paper. For the purposes of this paper, a rolling programme of digital signalling upgrades to replace the two-thirds of mainline signalling which will lifeexpire in the next 15 years is assumed.

Whilst signalling systems have been offered a lifeline to upgrade and improve, there are many systems upon which the day-to-day operation of the railway will soon life expire, with no solid plan for replacement. Our first key ask touches upon the immediate leadership and strategy required to overcome this.

Similarly there are large areas of operations which rely on paper forms, signatures and post. One operations leader told us it is mandated practice to book annual leave via fax, with a return confirmation fax promised from the rostering team within 6 weeks. Clearly, there is room for some improvement. However, other areas – for example electrification project sign-offs – have embraced digital solutions from our membership with significant corresponding time and cost savings.

• In January 2022 RIA published a report on the ECDP, titled ‘Signalling Change’, looking at the new model of delivery using industry and commercial partnerships, with a greater role for train operators and the supply chain26

• It will be covered in our ‘Digital Decade’ campaign throughout the next few years.

ECDP is a great example of collaboration to deliver innovation in the digital space. We believe this can and should be replicated – and we have highlighted this in Key Ask 6.

Introduction to 5G and Mobile Telecommunications

Underpinning most digital techniques are communications. As this paper looks at the evolution of digital technologies, we should not forget the reliance upon communication, a technology area which is also seeing rapid change through ubiquitous connectivity and the rollout of 4G and 5G networks.

RIA recently produced a handy technical guide27 to mobile communications to support members and the wider industry with the basics – providing a nontechnical introduction to those scoping, planning, or executing projects. It is available for free to both members and nonmembers by following the QR code.

THE WIDER LANDSCAPE

UK Government positioning and initiatives

The UK Government is aware of the current and potential benefits to the economy of maximising the continued transformation to an increasingly driven digital world. At a high level, it has published strategy papers to reflect these ambitions. Additionally, to support the Government’s ambitions in the field of data and digital there have been several funded and/ or supported initiatives, some of which with direct relevance to the railway.

National Data Strategy, published in September 2020

The National Data Strategy28 talks about harnessing the power of data to boost productivity, create new businesses and jobs, improve public services and position the UK as the forerunner of the next wave of innovation. It sets out 5 key missions: Unlocking the value of data across the economy.

• Securing a pro-growth and trusted data regime.

• Transforming Government’s use of data to drive efficiency and improve public services.

Ensuring the security and resilience of the infrastructure on which data relies.

Championing the international flow of data.

National Cyber Strategy, published December 2021

National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, published in September 2021

The National AI Strategy29 proposes three key pillars as the basis for a 10-year plan to make the UK a global AI superpower.

• Investing in the needs of the ecosystem to see more people working with AI, more access to data and compute resources to train and deliver AI systems, and access to finance and customers to grow sectors.

• Supporting the diffusion of AI across the whole economy to ensure all regions, nations, businesses, and sectors can benefit from AI.

• Developing a pro-innovation regulatory and governance framework that protects the public.

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

The National Cyber Strategy30 is the Government’s plan to ensure that the UK remains capable and resilient in the digital sphere, and that it continues to invest, innovate, and adapt to protect and promote our interests in cyberspace.

The NCSC31 is a governmental organisation that provides advice and support for Government departments, strategic infrastructure, and industry in how to avoid computer security threats from malicious actors.

National Digital Twin Programme

This programme is a partnership between the (former) Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the University of Cambridge launched in July 2018 and running until September 2022. It was created following the output of the 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report, ‘Data for the Public Good’32 . It had the following objectives:

Enable a National Digital Twin – an ecosystem of connected digital twins to foster better outcomes from our built environment;

• Deliver an Information Management Framework – to ensure secure resilient data sharing and effective information management 33;

Align a Digital Framework Task Group – to provide coordination and alignment among key players.

Whilst this programme is now closed, it has published documents that provide a foundation for the continuation of the Digital twins.

National Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Framework consultation

(from March to May 2022)

Cyber-physical systems bring together the digital and physical worlds, where data from the physical world feeds insight and decision making in the digital world, which can then be implemented either by a person, machine or collaboration of both.

Digital Regulation: Driving growth and unlocking innovation, published July 2021

The Plan for Digital Regulation35 sets out the Government’s overall approach for governing digital technologies in order to drive growth and innovation. It sets out an ambition to use digital technical standards to provide an agile and pro-innovation way to regulate AI technologies and build consistency in technical approaches.

The Digital World 2050 Report, published 2023

This report, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and produced by ‘Connected Everything’ looks at the future of manufacturing34 . It considers several points addressed in this paper, and also looks at manufacturing resilience and the path to Net Zero in the manufacturing sector through the transition to Industry 5.0. Many of the pressing issues in rail – and most specifically those related to skills and organisational change – are reflected in the report. The report makes 5 recommendations which strongly reflect RIA’s asks for rail.

Other Industries

The railway is not unique in the challenges and opportunities that data and digitalisation can bring. Lessons can be learned from thinking about how other fields have managed and reacted to similar changes.

The aviation industry has had a head start on digitally generated data usage for maintenance and performance. Passenger aircraft have been digitally instrumented for much longer due to functional and safety reasons; partially as the costs of component failure and unplanned maintenance are very high. A typical Boeing 737 will generate 240 terabytes of data per trip36 . On average, for each hour a commercial aeroplane is out of service, the operator loses $10k, so it is vital that all data generated is used to effectively schedule maintenance and repair tasks. Though considered more advanced than rail by some, the aero industry is still challenged to maximise the benefit of the data generated.

One example of data underpinning organisational change is Rolls Royce’s Power-By-The-Hour initiative, where the manufacturer leases engines to airlines, taking on all maintenance and reliability liabilities – pioneered over 60 years ago in 1962 37 The aviation industry has similar data ownership challenges to rail – with operators, manufacturers, maintainers, owners, and lessors having discussions on who owns the data, and to whom it should be available. The biggest benefits to airline customers have been strong safety and reliability improvement trends, coupled with freefalling ticket prices.

It is not just similar transportation industries that we should look to for lessons on data and the opportunities it can open for business success – and the challenges.

The histories of Kodak and Nokia, both of whom had great products and high market share, are well known. Step changes in technology, digital cameras, and smart phones, gave consumers functionality that they didn’t know they wanted until they got it, and then couldn’t live without. In the same vein, whole industries, not just businesses have been radically changed and challenged by technology, with the consumer gaining ever increased functionality. Just Eat went from a technology startup idea in Denmark in 2001 to a business startup in the Docklands, London in 2005 to having revenue of €3.4bn in 2020. Uber in the transport segment and Airbnb in the hospitality industry have both used well-designed software, easy and convenient for customers and new suppliers, to

access and radically change the well-established mobility and hospitality industries.

In engineering and manufacturing, CAD (ComputerAided Design) and CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) machine tools have revolutionised design and production methods respectively since the 1980’s. Gone are huge halls of drafts-people and machinists working semi-independently; the former replaced by collaborative working at CAD stations where many engineers can work on parts and designs simultaneously across the globe; the latter with automated muti-axis mills and robotics. Production costs have tumbled with precision and repeatability capabilities concurrently improving. The evolution continues: the combination of machine learning, AI, automated design processes and additive manufacturing is opening yet more possibilities for optimisation and cost savings34

Perhaps one of the most visible digital changes, affecting everyone day-to-day, is the rise of electronic news and, later, social media. The media of old, whether print, radio or TV, was a one-way broadcasting arrangement; filtered and viewed through the eyes of a select few. Electronic news and citizen broadcasting opened this to citizen reporters, meaning significant events could be live-streamed by anyone with the equipment to do so – equipment later engineered into smartphones which are now ubiquitous. Later, wireless data and social media networks enabled direct, realtime contact between anyone, anywhere. Badly handled social media activity has brought down many individuals and several organisations which would have fared better in the filtered-media world. Perhaps the biggest impact of social media is the public expectation to access information on anything, to talk to anyone, anytime, and have live updates of any event, anywhere38 . Rail has had to respond to these changing expectations: most customer-facing railway organisations – whether voluntarily or otherwise – have adopted social media as one of several primary contact points.

Given the high infrastructure costs of alternatives, it is unlikely that the railway will be like Kodak and cease to exist its core market anytime soon. It is equally unlikely a start-up mobility provider could move – with the same efficiency – the vast numbers of passengers in high density locations of which commuter rail is uniquely capable, or indeed the long-distance, green solution which high-speed rail offers. However, this privileged position should not allow the industry to sit on its laurels: we need to ensure we remain innovative, progressive, and relevant to our customers.

THE FUTURE

The Railway’s place in a future digital society

It is impossible to predict in detail how the railway will look in ten years, let alone even further into the future! At a macro level, some things are known or are highly probable:

According to RIA’s research, 45% of the current national fleet have been introduced in the last 10 years and will be nearing their replacement date, allowing a potential technology shift similar in size of that seen since the move from legacy, non-computer controlled technology.

• The society the railway serves will be different: likely a diverse range of customers with different accessibility needs, but a wider understanding and appreciation of digital technology through everyday familiarity.

• Digital signalling will be present in a significant proportion of the mainline network, driven by programme upgrades and end-of-life replacements.

• 10% of the track, in the best scenario, will not be electrified, with battery and hydrogen used as an infill power source. However, at current electrification rates, this non electrified percentage is likely to be higher.

• More routes will have been added to the network, for example East West Rail and Beeching cut reversals, bringing many more communities back into direct access to the railway.

• The number of passenger and freight journeys will increase. Though the effect of COVID19 has made trend predictions less stable, population growth, major projects such as HS2, East West Rail and Midlands Rail Hub, ongoing programmes such as the Transpennine Route Upgrade, the reopening of old lines, will drive numbers up. This will be compounded by emerging trends towards lower car ownership, increasing denser living through urbanisation, and growing local and global goods consumption.

Government policy, outlined in the Long-Term Strategy for Rail and being implemented through the creation of Great British Railways, will influence the direction of development, namely:

a customer first culture treating the railway as the whole system enhancement of the role of the private sector However, the details of the future railway environment are not easy to predict. 30 years ago, as mobile phones were taking off, Nokia couldn’t (or didn’t?) predict an iPhone and similarly, as digital entertainment was expanding, Blockbuster missed an opportunity to partner with Netflix. Even if these types of opportunities are missed, the UK railway network will not disappear. However, customer satisfaction, service profitability, return on investment success and UK exports potential are all dependant on wise and informed choices, which need to be made sooner rather than later.

The digital railway of the future

This section outlines how RIA – and our members – see the railway of the future, for its customers, owners, and maintainers.

We will have a digital railway.

Infrastructure

Smart sensors, cameras and other devices will monitor every aspect of the railway system in real-time – from track and train conditions, to parcel movements and passenger behaviour. This information will be pooled into the data-lakes, accessible to operators, infrastructure owners, and the supply chain.

Artificial Intelligence will use this data to constantly predict maintenance needs sending automated systems to fix issues before they become serious, significantly improving rolling stock and infrastructure availability and reliability. During the disruption it will optimise decisions on train movements, route choice and usage requirements for passengers and freight. Communication will be instantaneous. Standards will support the design of new components to drive automation and intelligent systems.

The railway system will be part of the National CyberPhysical Infrastructure, linking the entire transport network through digital twin platforms, allowing for short and long-term change scenarios to be modelled, improving service availability during special events or when significant maintenance and development is happening. This modelling is run by ever more powerful computers and algorithms. The models are holistic, and their outputs support live decision making during infrequent times of disruption – the main cause of which is no longer technical failure, but instead the result of a changing environment and weather patterns.

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Niels Bohr

Design and installation of rail schemes will be fully automated – guided by highly skilled human operators. Operational costs will fall to a fraction of current.

Passengers

Passenger journeys will be interlinked. From leaving the front door, through all transport mode changes, to arriving at their destination. Optimum mode changes will be calculated and communicated for them. Information given to passengers will be accurate, tailored, and timely. Railways will be a competitive option among other travel modes, offering convenient, affordable, reliable, and connected journeys.

Through Account Based Ticketing (ABT) there will be a single digital payment for the whole journey either as part of a subscription service or as a pay-as-yougo option. The cost for this journey will be calculated across all transport modes, offering the lowest fare. Railways will be fully integrated into wider MaaS (Mobility as a Service) systems, sharing data across transport modes, and allowing the account holder to access targeted offers, upgrades, and renewals.

Freight

Rail freight will form a significant part of the logistics chain, carrying the heavy freight from ports to distribution centres and working with retailers to deliver parcels to the hearts of the cities5 .

Powered by clean power, freight trains will significantly reduce the carbon emissions of the logistics sector

with freight users receiving daily reports on their goods’ carbon credentials.

Digital marshalling will allow rapid routing of individual containers through the network with predictable and reliable arrival times. Pop-up railheads will allow railways to support shorter term activities, such as construction and demolition. All will use auto-loading. The largest market entrant will be high-speed, highvalue freight. These will be supported by digital booking and tracking systems giving real-time information, and likely for small parcels, supported by automated last-mile delivery39

Timescales

• Most of the railway of the future vision is not reliant upon any technologies not yet invented – it is achievable and available now

The customer offering, revenue potential and business benefits are significant across the board.

• Impact and benefits accrual starts from the moment each digital transition is completed.

RIA therefore believe it is imperative that the UK railways begin its digital transition without any hiatus. Any delay is only costing our industry – and the treasury – unnecessarily. Unfortunately, we are already witnessing delay, hiatus and indecision which will increase costs, reduce benefits, and negatively impact our customer offering.

In our member’s words

Clearly, across all elements of our railway, there are opportunities for significant change, and most of this change will be because of, or enabled by, the continued evolution of data and digital techniques. There are, however, some challenges. We invited our members to state how they envisioned the railway fitting into society in the near future:

All the info to make an endto-end journey is available, at the moment it is either not available or presented in a neat enough format. Kind of an electronic concierge for the journey. Tickets should default to the aggregated lowest cost – it shouldn’t be our customer’s responsibility to find this.

I envision a railway where organisations work together collaboratively to maintain a strong focus on delivering for the customer. They put aside disputes and differences to come to an agreement on things such as investments and priorities. This leads to a more consistent and a compelling offer for the customer. Open data can and will play a large part in that.

The future railway is integrated and connected – part of a wider integrated transport system for people and freight. Knowing about demand and influencing operations, collecting better information and enabling better systems for managing disruption or unexpected demand will be key.

We think that we are considering passengers, but we are often not. Compare our offerings in terms of service to that of the top airlines.

We like the big name, flagship projects but often the basics are missing. Where is my train? What can I do if the train isn’t suitable? If it is cancelled? What if my travel plans change? The railway of the future will need to be better at managing these basic passenger needs.

The future railway will be supported by open data and the established underlying principles of what this needs to be. Data needs to have a level of quality, consistency and reliability that allows informed decision making to take place.

It will have to be very customer centric – this is step 1. This isn’t just about getting information to passengers. In terms of making the system available, reliable, and low cost, we need to get better at using information about how the assets perform, and move away from the traditional means of performing asset management. If we understand more about system performance and the rates as well as root causes system condition changes, we may be able to design better interventions. Less intrusive and less disruptive interventions. We need to reduce cost and provide better value for money. Reducing cost to encourage modal shift onto a greener form of transport.

The railway of the future will 100% be based upon data and digital techniques, and the quality of the data and its architecture will underpin what we can achieve. The whole industry needs to come together to work out a vision for the architecture of rail data in the future. Then when we are tweaking existing systems, we can keep in mind moving towards that architecture. There is plenty of common data architecture already out there to enable fast and scalable rollout – just look at what, e.g., Amazon or Netflix can achieve.

Supply Chain Priorities

In crafting the key asks of this paper, RIA surveyed its membership through winter 2022 to discern which digital issues were causing the most concern in the near term. We asked our members to rank a series of concerns or suggest their own most pressing issue. This figure shows the responses to this survey. Open access, standards and cyber-security were the top three areas of concern respectively. Of the members who stated ‘other’, suggestions included the quality of data, the lack of customer- or user-centricity, and the robustness of existing data streams.

Cyber-threats and other future concerns

Increasing global connectivity brings with it increasing exposure to the risk of malicious actors attacking systems. Motivations vary, from state actors acting for destabilisation or espionage, criminal/terrorist organisations with the goals of raising funds, or protest groups in raising awareness. RIA explored basic cybersecurity concerns in its recent 5G Technical Guide27. Cyber threats, and resistance to them, could fill a paper alone, and the potential to disrupt the lives and safety of our citizens is the reason so much resource – public and private – has been dedicated to the topic. It is worth noting:

• Other state entities, with recently installed and professionally managed IT systems have been hacked in recent years, for example the NHS. Other industries have rolled out safety- and operationally-critical connected devices for their

operation – for example traffic lights, smart motorways, and across aviation.

• Overseas rail operators and manufacturers have been the target of significant cyber attacks which have caused fleet and network outages.

Threats continue to evolve at an alarming rate, and this evolution requires ongoing vigilance from the entire specification, supply, and system ownership chain.

Alongside the threat of those trying to break cryptography for malicious means is the possibility that peaceful research into quantum computing techniques will lead us to the same ends. Quantum computers40 promise an enormous leap in the number of computations which can be performed concurrently – essentially solving problems which are intractable for our current computers. Some of those intractable problems are the complex puzzles required to solve the underlying encryption algorithms upon which many of our most secure systems are based – the example at the forefront of public imagination likely to be banking. Clearly this would have much wider implications that just in the railway industry. However, encryption has always been an arms race between codemakers and codebreakers – and the advent of Quantum computing will bring with it more advanced cryptographic techniques. There is significant research work ongoing in both parallel fields, including in the UK41

RIA’S KEY ASKS

To enable, expediate and ensure the success of the UK railway’s digital transition, RIA has six clear asks of Government, policymakers and clients. The remainder of the document is dedicated to exploring them.

Key Ask 1:

The railway’s digital transition requires leadership, strategy, and action, starting now.

The UK railways will undergo a digital transition. Nobody, neither customers, suppliers, nor clients can afford to wait until years after the formation of Great British Railways to have strong crossindustry leadership, to define a strategy, or for solid commitment to the correct change and investment.

• RIA supports the creation of Great British Railways and welcomes continued investment in the railway sector alongside cross-party recognition of it’s importance as the greenest and most inclusive transport mode of choice.

• However, timelines for the creation of GBR are opaque at best, and limited detail is published on intentions for a large part of GBR’s critical contractual and technical functionality.

• The spectre of such a seismic future change has created a hiatus in decision making and procurement for the operational railway. The supply chain is feeling this impact, and this is especially true in the agile digital space.

• Several key operational and legacy systems are due for replacement or upgrade before GBR will reach full functionality. These are critical systems upon which the whole railway operation depends. We have a golden opportunity to upgrade these systems rather than replacing like-for-like, but replacement cannot wait.

• The world outside is changing quickly, yet skills and organisational capabilities can take years to develop. Cybersecurity is a significant concern, and threats are fast-evolving – malicious actors will not wait for the railway industry to catch up either.

We need leadership to ensure the success of the Rail Data Marketplace. If the purpose and trust are lost in data quality then adoption and use of the Rail Data Marketplace will become a challenge.”

Change initiatives need to happen in the railway industry with the adoption of a digital culture that would support a better data intelligence and digital technologies, having the clarity on data ownership and owner responsibilities in terms of data accuracy and data sharing.”

Consistency is Key

RIA’s Electrification Cost Challenge report43 highlights that it is consistency which is of prime importance for the supply chain to delivery ontime and at budget. This consistency needs to be in line with a strategy owned by a guiding mind with ‘the greater good’ of the railway at the forefront of its thinking. Currently, disparate standards and investment, and worse – siloed operations leading to duplication of effort – are stifling the data and digital space in just the same manner. We wish to see a strong guiding mind offering decisive actions, owning the vision, showing a clear direction and strategy, and owning that strategy through to delivery.

The International Union of Railways

UIC highlights the need to create innovative and sustainable technical solutions, aimed at increasing its competitiveness while considering not only single domains, but the railway system as a whole42

• Each individual organisation has its own strategy and direction and there is much good practice in isolated silos. But there is a lack of consistency, topdown thought leadership, commitment to any given strategy, or indeed, funding to follow it through (See Key Ask 4).

• There are many competing interests in the data and digital world, and not all are for the benefit of the railway or its customers. We therefore think a whole-industry strategy should be created by a neutral body, appointed to take a cross-industry and cross-supply chain view. The UKRRIN Digital Systems Centre of Excellence may be ideally placed to provide this.

Clients of capital projects should insist on data centric delivery, but there is no policy for this. Most suppliers only deliver contractual minimum. Clients are lacking knowledge and skill to instruct suppliers to provide data and legacy, and therefore efficiencies. The Governance for Railway Investment Projects (GRIP) has fragmented the design process. GRIP3 needs to consider GRIP8 requirements (hand back). The data lifecycle in not considered leaving GRIP 5-8 with little to no data to provide efficiencies.”

The biggest challenges working with railway data for us are:

1. Knowing the data exists.

2. Finding a business owner who can supply the data to us.

3. Keeping the data updated from the master source of data.

Creating a ‘golden source’ repository of railway reference data, easily consumable by anyone, would be a big step to item 3. The Rail Data Marketplace is a massive step towards this, but it is not the full solution.”

Cultural Awareness

Bringing a wide cultural awareness, including an appreciation of digital adoption can only be led by a central strategy – whether in clients or suppliers. This is especially true with cyber security concerns, which are constantly evolving and need to be kept at the forefront of every staff member’s consciousness with ever evolving threats.

An Independent review?

Our introduction shows the landscape of data and digital in rail is large and complex, touching nearly every aspect of our industry. Many organisations are competing for business – both RIA members and otherwise – and many of them are quick to highlight the benefits of their particular solution. These benefits may be valid in isolation, but without a central strategy, systems which should be linked may continue to be siloed, restricting those potential benefits. This is why RIA recommend that an independent review of all digital rail systems be carried out, in a giant mapping exercise, including interactions. This should include projected

Leadership and strategy around the standardisation and central negotiation of core/common industry datasets would be a good starting point. For the more customer-specific data requirements, a standard set of terms and conditions as well as a template pricing models/ structures, would also be useful.”

No supplier wants to develop 20 custom systems for 20 different train operators, and no passenger wants 20 different apps. Great British Railways doesn’t clarify this position as we still don’t know the level of autonomy Passenger Service Contracts will bring. All the talk sounds like general progress in the right direction but we have yet to see anything concrete that the supply chain can get its teeth into. Really, we need leadership, solid decisions and commitment, and we need them now.”

The Railway Technical Strategy

We believe data and digital leadership and strategy should borrow heavily from the plans established in the Railway Technical Strategy. However, this strategy is technical rather than organisational, operational or commercial. True leadership needs to take all of these factors into account.

decommissioning dates to inform future public investment strategies, and development strategies for private sector. We believe this review should be independent of Government, client, or supplier, and carried out by an organisation without commercial interest. The UKRRIN Centre of excellence in Digital Systems17 may be ideally placed to provide this. This is not to suggest central control, but rather a strategic framework within which businesses and innovators can see opportunities and deliver increased benefits against, at most, outcome requirements.

As an industry there needs to be a central and representative voice that Train Operating Companies can work with and trust to take decisions on their behalf. A forum where people come along with open minds and willingness to work together. We need to remember that TOCs are the customer touch point.”

We worry that too much promise is being placed on the Rail Data Marketplace as the solution to all railways data problems. We need to remember it is a trading platform, it needs continued buy-in and continued commitment from organisations to be successful. Currently we get a very minimal level of support from clients as they are under-resourced for this and lack internal processes. With its launch, we have a golden opportunity to ensure the right investment and accountability.”

Key Ask 2:

The UK workforce need to be empowered: through upskilling and creating the right culture.

Technology does not exist in a vacuum. At the heart of every process, digital or otherwise, are people. Railways need a cross-industry drive to ensure the employees have the right skills for the new digital world, and we need to empower those people through widespread cultural and organisational change to reap the full rewards.

• Humans are involved in nearly all processes, especially so, where change and adaptation are involved.

It is often organisations, processes or job descriptions that act as blockers to achieving the full benefits of any innovative techniques, not the technologies themselves, even when individual staff members are keen to progress. Digitisation of technical elements without organisational change and the relevant skills is a dead end.

• The maintenance technician, signaller, director or customer relations professional of the future will need a very different skillset to today. This needs to be recognised through funding of and provision for the correct training alongside recognition of new qualifications.

• Railways have a great number of extremely competent professionals specialising in management of traditional assets, but surprisingly few specialising in the management of data – when data is perhaps the most critical and valuable asset.

• We need a cross-industry drive to concentrate on upskilling people and empowering them through cultural change. Organisations need to adapt, becoming more agile and open to collaborating –especially around digital innovation.

• This cannot be delayed. The digital transition is happening now and these skills are already in demand; both from within our industry and from competing recruiters. Again, cybersecurity concerns will not wait.

AI: The great time-saver?

According to the National AI Strategy29 , 80% of the time spent on an AI project is cleaning, standardising, and making the data fit for purpose. Whilst over the long-term, AI may be a timesaver, during a transition to the use of digital techniques (and not just AI), additional resource is needed: and that resource is significantly different to what exists in most organisations. It consists of unique engineering skills. Through understanding that the cost is in the people and organisational change, senior leaders need to build this into funded change programmes. The same leaders need to help ensure the wider workforce understands that change in line with the outside world is the only way to survive.

Government Tech Priorities

‘Building a tech-savvy nation’ by supporting skills for the future is one of the Government’s ten tech priorities43 . The Department for Culture, Media and Sport go on to say:

We want every adult to have a base level of digital and cyber skills so that no-one is left behind by the digital revolution. Our apprenticeships, digital bootcamps and the Digital Entitlement will help set people up for the highly-skilled, highly-paid roles of the future, and give them the confidence to use the internet safely and securely, while our £520 million Help-to-Grow scheme will empower 100,000 businesses to adopt the latest tech.

Existing initiatives such as the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) and UKRRIN are ideally placed to support these activities. Their role needs to be championed and funding guaranteed, independently of political changes.

There is often a disconnect between the mindset and understanding of agile startups and of larger organisations. The UK railway industry may benefit from training staff in both to have a better understanding of the processes, structure and concerns of the other.

Support and understanding from the C-suite is critical to the adoption of data intelligence and digital technologies. Legal/ contractual experience is an issue. Predefined, clear and easy to access contracts to support legal teams with little experience in the digital space will help organisations to quickly and efficiently adopt these emerging technologies.”

The importance of data needs high level organisation commitment. HS2’s digital twin vision is a good example of this.”

The railway runs on data. We are harvesting it at petabytes per month, but our ability to exploit that requires a skillset the majority of the industry don’t have.”

Our biggest challenge is the reluctance of customer organisations (for example, but not limited to Network Rail, GBR, etc) to talk to us about what we can do to help them. Representatives from these and other organisations stand up at conferences and say they need help in the areas of data and digitisation, but then when approached they cannot engage – is this organisational?”

There is a requirement for business level digital teams, not project teams attempting to do everything, and widespread acknowledgement and upskilling of railway stakeholders. There is a widespread void of BIM/digital competence across the railway.”

There is a lack of understanding at senior level about the benefits of digitalisation, and sometimes an inability to filter out the hype surrounding it. Demonstrating value and sharing industrial experience is often the best way to showcase these, but requires the time from seniors and the setup of an environment to showcase.”

Other Industries

Key digital innovators from outside rail concentrate on the changes required, or brought about by, the novel technology and its effect upon people. Some good examples from the consumer world include Uber and Airbnb. Their success comes from being built around people’s lives in addition to the underlying technology. However, this is not just about apps – in the commercial and engineering world the same applies, such as in our earlier example of Rolls Royce’s power by the hour business model37

Empowering our staff

It is not enough to gather copious amounts of data or to introduce new digital practices to a business. Teams need to have enough time in their day-to-day activities to convert data into intelligence and be empowered to act on it. There also needs to be a clear and accessible process to train existing teams, or resources to recruit someone with relevant skills. Staff need to be educated that roles will change: there needs to be vision and understanding amongst the workforce and this starts at the top. Culture is formed by workforces with common goals. The end goal is not a static state – it is an organisation able to adapt and change as technology, customer expectations and cyber threats also do so.

A large focus should be on reviewing the role of the IT organisations in companies. Today, most IT teams focus on keeping current state services running and maintaining security of existing infrastructure. Few companies are looking at the people, process and tools side of how IT organisation need to evolve to encompass citizen developments i.e. home grown applications and services as well as effectively managing the rapid changes of their IT estates. IT is still seen as an overhead not as a core development and innovation area. Allowing citizen development is a key first step to empowerment.”

There also seems to be a lack of understanding in client organisations that the adoption of new digital and data-based practices will mean that organisational processes need to change to enable the new approaches to be effective.”

Culture change is a transformation not a project – projects have defined starts and ends. Culture change is constant.”

The right people and organisations in the right roles

We need to clearly define where the roles and responsibilities of different people – and organisations – begin and end. What is the role of the operator? Asset owner? Manufacturer? Defining roles and responsibilities in organisations will help to empower the right actors.

The complex railway ecosystem is prohibitive to new entrants from outside the sector, with barriers present in policy, procurement, culture, and process, where misaligned costs and benefits prevent the justification of investment. A clear path to market with a simple benefit and reward structure will stimulate private sector investment in skills and facilities There is no onesize-fits-all approach, but personnel at all levels should be coached to understand the value of, and how to enable, innovation.

Key Ask 3:

The freight or passenger customer of the 2020s is not the customer of the 1990s, and the customer of the 2030s will have even greater service and information expectations. The world is forever changing. Collaboratively, across the clientsupplier interface, we need to constantly ensure our offering reflects these expectations.

The availability of data, and digital ubiquity, has changed the expectations of the retail customer beyond recognition since the dawn of the information age. Although the railway’s offering has evolved over time, it is fair to say it has not kept pace with customer expectations in many areas 44 45

• If applied correctly, digital techniques can help improve the passenger experience in a number of areas. This includes customer information provision, both ahead of and during the journey, at times of disruption, account and payment options. Accessibility considerations, and provision of vital information which makes journeys accessible to all, needs to be built in from the ground up.

However, systems which lead to a ‘good’ experience are not limited to customer interactions. For

The user experience of the railway in Great Britain: an evidence paper

This paper45 was the result of the evidence collection work conducted during the Williams Review. It clearly states:

…many passengers are not getting the experience they expect from rail travel with satisfaction now at its lowest in 10 years. Recent passenger experience has not been good enough. Delayed delivery of major infrastructure enhancements and the failed introduction of the May 2018 timetable have negatively impacted railway performance, passenger satisfaction and public trust. The significant disruption of 2018 was experienced on top of the issues that customers see day-to-day. Great Britain’s rail network is near or above capacity in some areas, meaning that the network is not always able to offer passengers the experience they expect, and that even minor disruptions can have significant impacts. 8 Freight operators are often unable to secure the level of access to the network that would enable them to grow their businesses and enable their customers’ businesses to expand.

The National Rail Passenger Survey

Transport focus last ran the National rail passenger survey in 202044 . The survey breaks satisfaction down into a range of key parameters. It is not always clear which problems could be solved by getting the right data to the right person at the right time, but there are a few standout examples:

• 60% of passengers nationally are dissatisfied with the reliability of internet connections or WiFi provision on the railway infrastructure. 25% of respondents are not satisfied with provision of information during the journey.

• Only 45% of passengers nationally are satisfied with the usefulness of information about delays.

• 20% of respondents were not satisfied with connections with other forms of transport.

example, remote condition monitoring can enable early interventions to prevent asset failures –reducing disruption and cancellations46

• Ticketing – both pricing and myriad, complex options – are widely mistrusted by the public47, and recent Government reform on ticketing has been ineffectual48 . Outside major conurbations, ticketing options are not integrated with the wider transport ecosystem. This integration is vital, and open data is key to that – no-one wants to end their journey at a station!

• Even as the greenest transport mode, we need to recognise we are competing to attract customers, and that those customers have an ever-wider choice, including not travelling at all.

Digital technologies often offer a better service proposition at lower outlay, as seen in the examples of Amazon, Uber, or Airbnb. RIA members have

We need greater emphasis on users. Those responsible for system should be considering if the data held could give the user more useful information and whether this could be provided in a more useful way. The University of Hull’s freight train planning initiative illustrates this point.”

Decentralisation of data is very important to make better use of rail data for the society and the travel ecosystem. Stakeholders within the rail industry should devise a policy of not holding back the data if it helps to provide a better service.”

Every organisation should place customers at the heart of everything it does and remain receptive to change.

Digital Maintenance

Customer-centricity isn’t limited to the customer facing elements of our network. One good example of a system perhaps ‘invisible’ to the customer but which could make a real difference is remote condition monitoring (RCM)46 . Warning of a fault or failure in an asset – whether infrastructure or rolling

Freight and Flexibility

Traditional freight flows have been fixed and regular – e.g. coal from mines to power stations. But as societal trends change, the requirement for flexibility and information will become ever more prevalent. If the railway is to permanently capture additional freight markets, then it must listen to customer requests – and alongside rail’s already green and low-cost credentials, these include flexibility to demand and better information provision49

developed a plethora of technologies and products to this end, but a scattergun approach will not work – there needs to be strong leadership, clear strategy, and unified approach to core changes: Potential freight and passenger customers will not be convinced to switch to rail by another app telling them why their train is late.

For the passengers – from door to door, supported by technology, underpinned by data. Any changes are intelligently served to the users. Equally, simple aspects that make such a difference to some passengers – like whether station assets such as toilets and lifts are working. Pertinent information that makes it friction free for all.”

stock – can have a huge impact upon the service quality delivered. RCM is in the process of being rolled out on national infrastructure and has been in use on newer trains for some time. However, there are potentially significant extra benefits from examining disparate data sources to spot patterns.

Barriers

A simple yet powerful illustration: Our railway places barriers – literally as well as figuratively –between passengers and the service we provide. There are no barriers to getting in a private car. In some other countries – Hong Kong for example – ticket barriers remain open unless it is seen a passenger should not pass – but the gates are still there. Yet there are digital systems in existence that could reduce or remove barriers completely, but which we have not adopted. Even without physical barriers, outside London, our ticketing system – our main source of revenue – is antiquated when compared to account-based systems in use in other industries and countries.

Keep an eye on the ‘why’!”

We should have a railway where organisations work together collaboratively to maintain a strong focus on delivering for the customer. Put aside disputes and differences to come to an agreement on things such as investments and priorities to create a more consistent and a compelling offer for the customer. Open data plays a large part in that.”

All the info to make an end-to-end journey a great experience is available in the back end, but it is not made available or presented in a neat format to our passengers. Perhaps this is because there are about 25 train and 5/6 freight operators and a plethora of asset types, methods of data collection, related but unlinked databases – If we could just join the right dots then we could work wonders. But a lack of standardisation and a lack of clarity of ownership are two things that hold us back. If we could crack those, we open up more innovation opportunity.”

I suspect passengers don’t really care about rail issues in the way that railway people do! We’re very good at telling a passenger their train is cancelled or delayed because of train crew availability or due to a points failure, but we don’t add a simple ‘therefore you should use this alternative route’, and rarely automatically compensate or make good on the inconvenience! This is not user friendly. Yet all of these extras are easy with the tech in our pockets!”

Key Ask 4: Invest in Innovation. Invest In Implementation.

The railway is an experienced creator and user of data; however, digital capabilities are evolving at what would have been, decades ago, an unthought of pace. The industry needs to open itself up to different ideas from new and experienced innovators both in rail and other industries. This will require investment in innovation, implementation, and the business changes that go with it.

• Innovation is a change programme which delivers business benefits. That change requires investment, but it is an investment that pays back. It is estimated that Network Rail’s £245m Research and Development funding between 2019 and 2024 will create a gross value added of £1.6bn over 20 years. It is recognised that successful innovation brings rewards. The more radical the innovation, often the greater the benefits, but the commercially and technically risk-averse nature of our industry prevents the paths to those innovations ever happening.

• There needs to be an acceptance in the investment process for incremental and radical innovation ideas, and space to fail. Recognise that some of these ideas will fail to be implemented as anticipated, but those that are will adequately pay back the losses. Lessons learned from these failures should be circulated within the innovation population, allowing future innovators to be better prepared for the challenges.

The industry should look to other, nontransport industries to adopt best practice. Manufacturing or e-commerce for example.”

We don’t have to re-invent the wheel when there are already things ready to deploy. The problem is that the deployment requires investment. Investment is a long-term commitment, and our industry is always looking for short-term returns.”

Research, development, and innovation: how do we define these terms?

Research and development refer to the processes of paper or laboratory study, and physical creation and advancement, respectively. Research and development are vitally important, but until their application, would not typically bring benefits to a business. They are concerned with knowledge creation, and capability/technique demonstration.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines innovation as ‘the introduction of new things, ideas, or ways of doing something’. The key word is ‘introduction’ – innovation is the beginning of the process to turn something novel into business as usual. At some point on this journey, the expenditure of resources will be offset by the business benefits, meaning the innovation represents a ‘net-gain’.

Research, development, and innovation all require funding, but, with a few exceptions, innovation is where the business begins to change, and that funding begins to pay back 8

The Railway Safety and Standards Board are leading on a collaborative piece of work to create a common language around these definitions to ensure the correct understanding during discussions within, and outside, our industry. This work will feed into the Whole Industry Strategic Plan.

Innovations should fund themselves, given enough time – whether that’s by driving modal shift for extra revenue or saving money. But they require up-front investment and longerterm commitment.”

Data needs to be used to understand the implications of climate change on asset resilience and how investment plans need to be changed (eg to cater for sea level rise).”

We should run smaller trial projects, aimed solely at SME’s to provide a route to innovation at lower risk to clients.”

We need to innovate faster. Our speed of change is not good. We need to be leaner thorough implementation.”

Investment in the Rail Data Marketplace is a positive step, but we need to continue this with the investment from data-holding organisations to enable them to provide robust and timely data for trading. Eventually this investment will pay the industry back as the benefits of sharing are seen, but that will be a few years away.”

Innovation: Government policy and opportunity for growth

Despite small bubbles of best practice, RIA’s 2022 research8 evidenced railway innovation to be underfunded when compared to formal targets published by the Government, and under-supported, when compared to best practice. Worse, the path to adoption into business-as-usual for even trivial change is fraught with roadblocks. Investment in innovation and particularly digital innovation is of importance to more than just the railway industry. Innovation is highlighted as a flagship Government priority, both within and outside the railway industry, and best-practice identified in several third party reports

• ‘Intellectual property and investment in Artificial Intelligence’ study published by UK Government in July 2022, states that the UK is good at developing AI solutions but is lacking in investment, and AI company growth beyond the start-up stage often falters51

• According to a Public First report, digital technology could grow the economy by over £413bn by 2030. That is the equivalent of around 19% of the entire UK economy52

• Tech Nation published that UK tech venture capital investment is third in the world, hitting a record high of $15bn in 2020 in the face of challenging conditions53 .

To fully exploit the data revolution, innovation skills and behaviours need to be developed and brought in alongside this investment. This links to our other key asks.

• Data should be accessible to all relevant parties. The costs and benefits from the exploitation of data should be shared between those who create the data, those who own the data, and those who benefit operationally and financially from the data.

• Investment in the skills of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence is vital to allow the useful processing of the Data Lakes that will be generated by the industry.

• Our ask is simple and twofold. Firstly, ringfence investment for innovation rollout across client organisations, including organisational change and upskilling. Secondly, assign a significant proportion of funding to radical innovation.

The biggest difference will be made if we move away from a railway which is fighting over the same small pot of money. Giving opportunities to the private sector to deliver on what they specialise in – for example not having the TOCs own every part of the customer interface journey. TOCs don’t do everything as well as specialist partners could – there should be more room for these partners in contractual arrangements.”

Innovation Navigator

The Railway Industry Association is developing the Innovation Navigator, an online tool giving guidance on the railway environment and advice on how to get innovations accepted and developed. It is available for free online and may prove especially useful to new market entrants50 . Scan the QR code to visit the site.

We need to be targeting the right innovations – and part of this is understanding what is already in place so we don’t keep reinventing the wheel. Train Operating Companies have innovation budgets and do some good work, but they are often reinventing the wheel.”

The private sector drives creation of new techniques and technology. But the public sector is often responsible for the innovation part, which is the actual roll-out. Often the public side doesn’t know what capabilities are out there, it specifies too much, too tightly, getting a solution but not an optimal one. We should be more confident in letting the market decide. We should remove the overly bureaucratic, specification-based approach, and open it up to more disruption. This comes down to governance, and it needs investment.”

Key Ask 5:

Operations and maintenance must embrace the digital future. There is an inevitability that maintenance and operations will change as more and more data – and subsequent asset and state knowledge – becomes available. However, this knowledge should not be treated as an additional extra. To reap the full benefits, digital techniques need to be core business activities. This means building in digital approaches from the ground up and designing assets, operations, and maintenance around them.

• The full exploitation of digital technology and the data generated require industry leading experts in all relevant fields. These experts may not exist in the organisations of infrastructure managers or train operating companies.

Standards: Enabler or blocker?

The increase in data usage to improve the railway will challenge the standards used for infrastructure and rolling stock, and this is explored in Key Ask 5, however, there is a significant challenge created managing the standards used for the creation and transfer of data and the development of Digital Twins. This is an important step as, according to the National AI Strategy, 80% of the time spent on an AI project is cleaning, standardising and making the data fit for purpose.

The British Standards Institution (BSI) in conjunction with the National Digital Twin Programme and the Construction Innovation Hub have published a white paper, BSI Agile Standards54 , which addresses 5 important questions:

What is driving the need for increased agility in shaping good practice?

What are the potential benefits of developing standards using agile approaches?

• What are agile standards (that is, what do we mean by standards that are developed in an agile manner)?

How does this compare with traditional approaches?

What are the main applications for agile standards?

2 key things that need to change are our culture and governance. We should fix culture across industry on a way of working and a common goal to work towards to be less confrontational. It’s the governments job to make sure that the strategy aligns with the big picture with an agreed set of working and principles, alongside private sector. Governance: how do we come together as an industry to drive better decision making.”

Artificial Intelligence will be the most impactful thing to happen to the data and digital space in the next few years. Customer facing applications are easy to implement compared to changing safety critical aspects. There is no room for failure in changing those.”

The railway isn’t geared up to use digital twins. The concept is hard to define, and I know of only one or two solid implementations of the technology. Rather than having to go to a full digital twin, the industry should look at what they can do with existing technology to make information accessible – a twin would be good, but it isn’t essential.”

The industry should look to other, nontransport industries to adopt best practise. Defence, road and aviation all have their own challenges but seem to be able to adopt digital practice much faster than rail. What are we doing differently?”

Digital Twins

Digital twins are now part of the deliverables of many live and planned projects. They require a common information architecture, enabling integration of systems, as well as an effective and secure exchange of data. We know that our railways are not always geared-up to provide this. However:

• Do we, as an industry, fully understand the implications, costs, and benefits of digital twins for rail?

• What proportion of railway assets and operations should be replicated on a digital twin platform?

• What capital and ongoing support is needed to enable their creation and adoption in rail?

The answers to these questions, and more, are key to understanding the future role of digital twins.

For example, Network Rail, working alongside RIA members, are making big strides on their digital model of the infrastructure with a single version of the truth for the location of assets in the ‘Axiom’ project. This project is aligned to the business case for digital signalling, but its use cases extend to many other asset types.

• The accumulation of data, the processing of data, and the use of that data will not necessarily be done by the same organisation.

New and innovative methods of data collection need to be implemented into the railway and then trust that information to make operational decisions.

• A significant proportion of high frequency low complexity maintenance tasks cannot feasibly be made condition based by on-asset technology. Additional rolling stock mounted, lineside and depotbased sensors would allow further collection and capitalisation of data.

Maintenance, repair, and service scheduling currently involves long term planning using a significant labour resource. Advances in AI will challenge existing workforce levels and allow almost immediate recalculation of plans.

To maximise automation of high frequency, repetitive tasks equipment should be designed for this, and a whole-life cost considered.

The fastest way to do things is always once! Assets should be surveyed once and the data available to all. At the moment, every discipline carries out its own surveys and holds its own data.”

• The minimisation of whole-life costs does not necessarily financially or organisationally benefit all entities, but it does benefit the cost effectiveness of the railway as a system, ensuring its future competitiveness.

• Systems need to be created with internal – as well as external – customers in mind.

We have information about how the assets perform, but we need to get better at using it, and that’s an organisational issue. We need to move away from the traditional means of doing asset management. If we understood more about system performance, rates of change of system condition and root causes, we may be able to design better interventions. They could be less intrusive, less disruptive interventions.”

We need to reduce cost and provide better value for money. Reducing cost can encourage modal shift onto our greener form of transport, growing our business in a virtuous circle. But reducing those costs relies on organisations changing to embrace new ways of working. Maintenance standards often lag by several decades over what can be achieved.”

How do we move from time interval maintenance to condition based – which is all about use and interpretation of data?”

Key Ask 6:

Collaboration and openness are vital, and this starts with the clients.

Collaboration is a process. The East Coast Digital Programme is demonstrating what can be achieved through close supply chain collaboration with an open and agile client. This could be used as a model for other digital rollouts, with clients encouraged to be open in sharing their opportunities, challenges and needs. The sharing of robust datasets through appropriate channels should be built into procurement and service contracts to ensure compliance across supply chain.

• Targets, challenges, and measures of current performance must be clear and available to allow an understanding of areas where innovation can bring benefits. This must include sharing what data could be available should it be required, even if the mechanism to share it is not yet able.

• With Network Rail devolution, creation of further regional transport bodies, multiple train and freight operators, there is a risk of creating significant duplication in research, development, and innovation activities. A collaborative, cross-industry knowledge bank of ongoing projects, short- and long-term plans, inviting collaboration on innovative projects, would lower costs and enable better adoption.

• Universities are not the only entities with innovation capabilities based on science. Suppliers often work across multiple industries and have been investing in their own solutions for many years – their experience is incredibly valuable but often overlooked in project specification.

We need more collaboration across our self-imposed boundaries. This is of course something that GBR need to wrestle with longer term, but we cannot sit waiting and hoping.”

Realtime Trains platform is a good example of what can be done with an open data stream.”

The Rail Data Marketplace

The Rail Data Marketplace (RDM) is a big step towards the trading of railway data and streamlining, licencing agreements and adopting an ‘open by default’ stance (see case study). It is currently in testing with a small group of users –who have given very positive feedback – and will be released to the wider rail community shortly.

Its objective is to create a market for sharing of data between consumers, such as app developers, tech firms, academia, and the clients. The RDM is reliant on data owners and collectors submitting their data to the marketplace, and having the commitment to support those data feeds to make them robust enough for third parties to derive value. The platform also offers standardised licensing arrangements, which should help third parties, including agile developers, get access to the data they need faster.

There is a responsibility on supply chain to commit to supporting data owners, and in offering an assurance that there isn’t a loss of control of any data.

Banking recently went through a similar process to create the open banking architecture, though in that case the project was funded by a ‘tax’ on banks, given to a central trusted entity to create and host the solution.

• However, these same suppliers often hit barrier when trying to operate in rail. Those barriers include a lack of funding in client organisations to bring about the organisational change needed to yield the full benefits (See key ask 4).

Often the worst things for the supply chain are uncertainty and hiatus, but that’s all we seem to have seen in recent years, not just in the data space. Constant changes in clients, often imposed by Government policymakers, means that supply chain is running around picking up the pieces and this adds huge costs and delays.”

With a devolved operating structure, everyone is seeking separate solutions for common problems. Frameworks incentivise dialogue only with suppliers regionally, meaning multiple similar products are bought nationally. Collaboration should start across these boundaries before it ever gets to the supply chain.”

Bringing a true entrepreneurial spirit, being willing to fail and disrupt, to do things a different way, is vital. Clients need to understand this approach and be open to failures on the development path.”

• Additional barriers are seen across procurement: often trials are procured and SME’s gear up to supply, but then after a successful trial, there is no order forthcoming. Procurement is not set up to support the fail-fast, agile approaches present in many digitally-focussed organisations. A review of digital systems procurement methodology – to include innovation partnerships – may therefore prove valuable.

• RIA welcome challenge statements from Network Rail, Transport for London and wide array of other railway clients. However, those statements need to be supported by teams or individuals who are empowered to make changes and have budgets associated for rollout of successfully demonstrated innovations, alongside an indication of the ‘size of the prize’. Challenge statements without these supporting elements are a real problem for private sector, who often invest based upon them.

The private sector is primed to co-invest, but investment needs a route to a commercial return and this is not always made clear or available. If clients were empowered to share the benefits of investment to solve their issues, significant further investment could be forthcoming.

Knowing what exists?

Data stream availabilities must be published so that innovators know what exists, where to look, and who to contact for future access – even if the data itself will not be available for some time. A corollary of this is that gaps in the data created can be derived, opening opportunities for these to be provided by innovation. Access to the data in the data streams should be available, with free access or through standard contractual shared benefit agreements.

As an example, independent ticketing retailers currently cannot offer long term railway planning (i.e. over a month in advance) because RDG systems do not support this. However, if these companies were given access to the underlying data sets, they could derive it themselves.

It’s a real struggle to get any data at all from Rolling stock leasing companies or train operators – even just something simple like wheel profiles. What is the reluctance to share this data, commercial, political, or other?”

We need to get better at collaborating cross-industry –infrastructure managers with supply chain and other railway undertakings who deliver the timetables. To make everything cost less, it will mean that someone needs to invest.”

A large number of rail projects are underpinned by public finance so there is an obligation to make the underlying data available.”

CASE STUDIES

CAPGEMINI AND NETWORK RAIL

Empowering people through upskilling and creation of the right culture; how Network Rail is raising competence in information and data

Data is Network Rail’s fastest growing asset.

Our management decisions are being increasingly influenced by data. We collect petabytes of data every month from across our CCTV and operational estate. This volume is growing as programs like Intelligent Infrastructure roll out more of the asset condition solutions we need.

The systems and technology in those solutions will play a large part in the democratisation of our data… but we know that there is no meaningful change without people.

The Digital Knowledge, Information and Data (‘DKID’) competence framework has been developed to create a platform to show, build and share our data skills.

We have isolated critical competences like:

• Data and Information Fundamentals

• Analytics and Intelligence

• Data Modelling

• Lifecycle Assurance and QM

…and we have developed ‘routes to competence’ with training and Action Learning suggestions to guide people through their KID skills development.

Our Routes and Regions are starting to roll out the framework now, and we plan to share the framework with supply chain too.

We have also made it easy for anyone interested in KID to gain recognition from institutes like IET SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age), CILIP (Chartered Institute for librarians and Information Professionals, DAMA (Data Management) and CDBB (Centre for Digital Built Britain).

CONTACT:

Ben Blackwall, Senior Architect, Capgemini

Ben.blackwall@capgemini.com

AQUA

Transforming wastewater networks for a sustainable future

Introducing Aqua DNA, an intelligent digital solution that collects live data and improves wastewater network performance using smart sensors and AIpowered predictive analytics to reduce risk and make a positive societal and environmental impact.

At Jacobs, we are specialists in water and know digitalization, decarbonization and smart operations are essential enablers and imperatives for managing the water cycle. We’ve been using this core domain knowledge to help us develop a game-changing digital product that will transform wastewater networks.

By introducing smart technology and sensors into the wastewater network, utilities can understand how their systems are performing in real time, alerting operators to potential incidents and avoiding damaging spills, floods, blockages, and discharges, which are harmful to their customers and our environment.

Aqua DNA seamlessly captures thousands of data points every second, and it’s all analyzed in real time. Consistent data enables Aqua DNA to recognize operational patterns and assets in parts of the network, identifying conditions that lead to incidents earlier than ever before!

Aqua DNA offers tiered levels of service, providing network insights to utility companies, centralizing data and pooling knowledge for a common purpose, extending the life of our wastewater networks. Aqua DNA connects operation assets and systems and is supporting utilities in their transition from reactive to proactive ways of working.

Our Aqua DNA Process

1. Upfront testing and audit – The Aqua DNA team will review your current system to understand your data availability and quality. Are you maximizing what you already have and what data do you need to improve end to end management? We provide a report on our findings.

2. Recommendation, installation, and placement –Our system specialists have a deep understanding of sensors from knowing device lifecycles, quality

of service to hostile environments. Our location app manages the design, validation, survey, install and snagging of any sensor on the wastewater network. We combine hydraulic modelling and historic incident data to target hot spots.

3. Solution integration – Aqua DNA is a modular, agnostic platform that can ingest data in any format and can be integrated into other systems. It can work with your existing sensors and seamlessly interface with your IT and OT – we can convert data to make it readily useable. It can also be a holding platform to bring all your information into one place.

4. Platform check – Here the system is tested to make sure it has been correctly set up for the client’s needs, we can manage the ongoing data traffic to save you time.

5. Iterative improvements – Once Aqua DNA is running, regular check- ups recommend areas that can be improved for future success.

CONTACT:

AquaDNA@Jacobs.com

“Working with Jacobs, we are the first in the world to be implementing this technology at this scale and with artificial intelligence being applied for full network system learning, we believe the work we’re doing is truly transformational and will deliver a step change in wastewater performance.”

Steve Mogford, Chief Executive, United Utilities

BENTLEY

Modernizing a vital rail artery

The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) is a GBP multibillion railway upgrade program that aims to deliver passenger focused benefits across the Transpennine route, between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield. Stretching over 100 kilometers, this vital rail artery serves 23 stations, crosses over and dips under 285 bridges and viaducts, passing through six miles of tunnels, and over 29 level crossings. TRU will support economic growth in the North of England, transforming the line into a highperforming, reliable railway for passengers, to deliver greater punctuality, more trains, and improved journey times. Network Rail retained Jacobs as the technical design authority to digitalize data and workflows throughout design, construction, and lifecycle operations and asset management.

Unlocking the power of a digital ecosystem

To support the most efficient and safest design, construction, handover, and operations, TRU sought to establish a digital twin and needed a user-friendly, connected digital solution that could bring together the voluminous data and distributed, multidiscipline team. They selected the Bentley iTwin platform to integrate with ProjectWise, ContextCapture, multiple authoring applications, and internal databases, federating large volumes of data and making it accessible to the entire team. The integrated solution facilitated the creation of a route-wide digital twin, pushing the boundaries of a digital environment to establish a connected digital ecosystem for data-

driven decision-making. With the web-based iTwin platform at its core, the TRU digital ecosystem enables a virtual, visual representation of the assets, accessible and maintainable in real time throughout the project lifecycle.

Digital twins set industry benchmark

Using the Bentley iTwin platform improved information accessibility by 40%, saving more than 20,000 hours and an estimated GBP 1 million in the first six months of implementation. Creating a connected digital ecosystem and digital twin contextualized data in a visual platform, providing new levels of insight and trust in the data. The team could produce more holistic analytical solutions to support better engineering decisions, as well as deliver a safer, more reliable, and sustainable railway infrastructure.

CONTACT:

Andy Willetts, Senior Account Manager, Mobility, Northern Europe

andy.willetts@bentley.com

T: + 44 (0)207 861 0900

M: +44 (0)7944 264803

“iTwin services represents the heart of our connected environment that has enabled us to optimize program delivery through our digital twin approach.”

Joao Barbeiro, Digital Engineering Lead for Transpennine Route Upgrade, Jacobs Engineering

FRAZER-NASH CONSULTANCY

Predicting delays on the UK rail network

Understanding how delays will propagate and recover on the UK rail network is a complex challenge: the network has a complicated infrastructure and is used heavily by both passengers and freight. With information recorded by every train as it passes through the thousands of timing points on the network, there is an abundance of data that is too detailed to give operators the holistic view required to make informed decisions but, if aggregated and presented suitably, has the potential to provide valuable insight.

Funded under a grant from Network Rail and RSSB, as part of its Data Sandbox+ competition, Frazer-Nash Consultancy have combined their advanced Machine Learning experience from the defence sector with Lampada Digital Solution’s comprehensive and detailed rail network database (NR+) to develop REPAIR: Rapid Evaluation and Planning Analysis

Infrastructure for Railways. REPAIR applies a model trained on five years of historical data to live data feeds from Network Rail, allowing predictions to be made on how delays might improve or worsen in the following hours. The visualisation tools also provide an overview of these delays on the rail network, allowing users to quickly identify locations that have delays which may impact their operations.

Extensions to the predictive model were also developed, utilising NR+’s route-finding methodology, to offer alternative routing solutions, and allow the user to run ‘what if’ scenarios to test the impact of different incidents on the system as a whole. This will empower controllers to make faster and better decisions. These extensions were designed as a result of engagement with an advisory board, made up of major players in the rail freight operating sector.

CONTACT:

Gwen Palmer

g.palmer@fnc.co.uk

01752 507641

GO MEDIA

Digital Technologies Overcoming Physical and Linguistic Barriers to Rail Usage

Rail networks should be stress-free to navigate for all people, regardless of age or disability. Of the people who could be using trains, how many are actually able to do so?

In the UK, more than 60% of users with accessibility needs do not attempt or struggle to make independent journeys on public transport. The impact of inaccessible transport on the national economy is estimated to be over £70 billion per year.

The ergonomic design of stations and vehicles will play a role in improving accessibility. However, alongside these major infrastructural changes, digital technologies which use personal smart devices will provide more immediate and cost-effective wins through personalised and at-hand support, reducing the barriers to use for visual and hearing-impaired customers.

Icomera, through its subsidiary GoMedia, has developed two solutions funded by the Department for Transport through the £9m First of a Kind 2021 (FOAK21) competition. Both solutions work by personalising existing industry data feeds – Darwin: Push Port and Darwin4Trains – for the customer, which also ensures the transport network presents a single source of truth.

1. Visor: Guided Navigation for Passengers with Sight Loss

Developed in association with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and NaviLens, and trialled at Euston Station, Visor leverages NaviLens BIDI codes and GoMedia’s live cloud-based passenger information system to display directions in the NaviLens and NaviLens GO apps already adopted by the visually impaired community.

Passengers simply hold up their smartphone. The device automatically recognises any BIDI codes in view and displays location- and context-specific directions to help them reach their destinations more quickly and easily.

During closed tests of Visor, 94% of users could locate elements they were previously unable to find.

2. HEAR: Empowering Passengers with Hearing Loss

Developed with support from charities Hearing Link and Hearing Dogs, and trialled with Transport for Wales (TfW), HEAR (Hearing Enhanced Audio Relay) enables passengers connected to a vehicle’s onboard Wi-Fi to receive personalised journey announcements to their smart devices in real-time.

When an announcement occurs, passengers receive a text notification, and the audio begins playing automatically. The passenger controls the volume and can set notifications for their specific destination or opt to hear them all. A history of announcements is always available.

Leveraging personal devices in this way is a viable alternative to hearing loops, and it broadens the use case to include people who have a temporary limitation such as from an ear infection, or a selfimposed limitation, such as headphones.

A survey of people with hearing loss found 96% of respondents would love to have a solution like HEAR implemented on public transport.

CONTACT: Sven Koster enquiries@gomedia.io

ICOMERA

Icomera’s IcoShape Data Traffic Optimisation Tool Empowers Northern to Reduce its Data Consumption by 20%

From digital video surveillance to remote condition monitoring (RCM), more business-critical onboard systems are leveraging Internet connectivity than ever before. In addition, more passengers are connecting to onboard Wi-Fi services, with those travelling expecting to remain productive and entertained throughout their journeys. As a result of this growing consumption of wireless data, transport operators face an everexpanding challenge in managing their overall data usage and the associated costs, while supplying an onboard experience to match expectations.

Icomera’s data traffic flow management tool, IcoShape, has been designed to reduce the impact of heavy bandwidth usage in this new data-centric normal. IcoShape empowers transport operators to utilise their available bandwidth more efficiently by categorising and then prioritising / throttling and / or blocking links as desired, ensuring that data from operational-focused systems is distributed in good time, at a low cost, and without noticeably impacting performance for other systems or passengers.

In 2022, Northern deployed IcoShape as part of a competitive trial to investigate how to better manage its data costs, optimise the quality of service, and improve overall passenger satisfaction levels. With an average of more than half a million users connecting to its Wi-Fi every month, the transport operator sought a solution which would allow it to control and mitigate its data spend, while still being able to offer the best possible experience for its passengers connecting to the onboard Wi-Fi.

By categorising network traffic, IcoShape allowed Northern to gain a deeper understanding of how data was being used, and to take the appropriate action. Northern was able to configure Wi-Fi usage rules using a web-based graphical interface integrated within ICONIC, Icomera’s cloud-based monitoring tools. Data traffic streams could then be prioritised, throttled, or blocked depending on their level of importance; for example, traffic for Northern’s onboard systems, such as digital video surveillance, could be prioritised.

our network.”

Marc Silverwood, On Train System Manager, Northern

Importantly, IcoShape’s deployment resulted in no detrimental impact to passenger satisfaction levels; in fact, Northern saw an improvement in the overall passenger experience because it could provide a fairer, more reliable Wi-Fi service for all (as opposed to a small number of passengers “hogging” the available bandwidth).

Using IcoShape, Northern achieved an average 20% reduction in its data consumption. As a result of the trial’s success, Northern selected Icomera to roll-out IcoShape fleet-wide; this was a simple task given that Icomera’s connectivity solution allows for over-the-air deployment.

CONTACT:

Paul Barnes

+44 7837 917 611

paul.barnes@icomera.com

“IcoShape has allowed us not only to better maintain our cost portfolio, but also to increase the customer benefit through delivering a more reliable Wi-Fi service across

RAIL DELIVERY GROUP

Enabling a Rail Data Marketplace for enhancing sustainability and data-based innovation within the rail ecosystem

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), working on the Rail Data Council’s directive, designated TCS as its technology partner and officially launched the Rail Data Marketplace programme. Built on TCS Dexam™, the Rail Data Marketplace aims to bring all strategic partners (which includes Department for Transport, the Rail Supply Group, GBRTT, RSSB, and Network Rail), data publishers, and consumers (app developers, tech companies, academic institutions, and the rail industry) onto a single strategic platform making data searchable, easy to find, and seamless to access. Furthermore, the platform will measure environmental characteristics, allowing it to support the UK’s rail decarbonization plan.

Business Objectives

To create a user centered, digital service platform to enable:

Access to real-time data and rail information to foster an environment for innovation and to develop customer-centric solutions.

Data Sharing in Rail Ecosystem to deliver improved efficiency across the industry..

Promote Public-Private collaboration to augment growth in rail and cross modal public transportation. Common Learning Platform for users by enabling access to rich source of rail industry data.

Solution

TCS is developing the world’s first countrywide rail data marketplace powered by TCS Dexam™, (in partnership with Google).

The solution facilitates.

Publishing of UK Rail and associated data assets in a catalogue

Consolidation and standardization of patterns for data sharing – REST APIs, Pub/Sub Analytics on API / data usage management and consumption

Monitoring and reporting on availability of data sources

Controlled access to data assets through Licenses and Contracts

Metadata and taxonomy to help categorization of data assets and data classification..

Benefit to RDM Stakeholders

• The Rail Data Marketplace will help stakeholders to access authenticated data transparently and present a ‘single source of truth’.

• Drive value across the rail industry through coordinated access to shareable data via an ecosystem of federated APIs and other data sources.

• Establish community forums for RDM users to act as knowledge hub, raise issues, make suggestions for improvements, and request new datasets.

• Deliver enhancements, new features, services, and datasets catering to user needs.

• Easy to explore existing data sources.

Business Benefits

• Better ways of sharing authenticated data transparently and facilitate real-time information to passengers and freight customers.

• Improved data sharing across operational bodies within the rail data ecosystem and beyond, with a foundation pillar of ‘open data’ by default but also fully functional in supporting commercialised data products.

Stimulate Innovation, sustainability and transparency in rail information and associated data. In one user research interview, a large commercial organisation said: “If someone has a great idea about how our data could be utilised we would actively look to ‘seed fund’ the individual or organisation.” Enable new customer focused products and services to improve passenger experience.

More effective movement of goods at reduced costs.

CONTACT:

Madhvi Pandey

madhvi.pandey@tcs.com

Ravindran Lovesh

r.lovesh@tcs.com

Clare Morrissey

Clare.Morrissey@raildeliverygroup.com

“The Rail Delivery Group is pleased to be building this new service in collaboration with TCS to make it easier for companies to access rail-related data via a single strategic platform. Implementing the marketplace will allow the industry to better exploit the data which already exists as well as lowering the barriers of entry to innovators and new entrants to our sector, ensuring a sustainable future for the railway.”

THALES

Sky’s the limit for new rail Journey Planning solution

Thales’ Online Journey Planner solution (OJP) – which provides a one-stop-shop for passengers planning rail journeys in the UK – has evolved over time and is built as a large three-tier monolithic solution.

Historically it provided a flexible foundation for National Rail Enquiries, but as OJP supported new functionality and channels, the platform became more complex.

The new National Rail Enquiries Modernisation (NREM) project was set up by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) to provide all the existing applications’ functionality, but split into smaller, simpler, independent components. The components are deployable in a modern cloud environment, using only the resources they require. This was an important development, as the existing legacy solution required all servers to be available 24/7, resulting in costs even when not in use.

The new design also needed to handle up to 10 million journey requests a day, with the APIs required 99.99% of the time, with a response rate of 300ms.

Through the RDG, Thales Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) had the opportunity to re-design the OJP solution and transform the existing complex system into something simpler and more cost effective. The technical solution involved a move to the cloud, developing individual simplified microservices, all highly secure, reliable and scalable.

Before undertaking the project, Thales GTS carried out a review of ways of working within the team, recognising that a new, more streamlined delivery and agile approach would be required. The review included creating a new office environment, making remote working easy and accessible, and bringing new team members into a self-managed team.

The agile approach involved progressive assurance, with requirements mapped to an automated test using Business-Driven-Development and Automated

test frameworks. This tied in with a requirements’ management tool, mapped against Jira User Stories to test and deliver evidence.

This iterative approach built customer confidence, enabled changes as the programme progressed, continuous delivery, as well as ensuring no surprises on completion.

To support this approach, documentation techniques were modernised using the Arc42 template – a practical and pragmatic way to document architecture online.

The new solution was delivered on time. It offers a secure, reliable, cost effective, future-proofed foundation for creating services and components. It also provides business benefits as the old system undergoes decommissioning.

For a detailed view of the modern tech stack used, please refer to the architecture diagram.

CONTACT:

Andrew Hunter

HUBBLE

Hubble is a next generation AI technology, which is widely used by Network Rail to help front-line teams with the mammoth task of lineside management. Hubble uses the footage recorded from a train’s Forward Facing CCTV camera to help front line teams quickly pinpoint exactly where lineside vegetation is likely to be an issue, so it can be cut back before it causes delays to passenger and freight services.

This video data is processed into point clouds and machine learning algorithms are applied to inspect the lineside to Network Rail’s standards. Geospatial analysis is then used to provide locational information on the whereabouts of any potential issues on the network.

“Hubble is a key support tool to help us manage the lineside more efficiently. Since using Hubble we have reduced the number of the higher risk potential issues by 80% and 96% on certain key corridors. Hubble has demonstrably helped improve performance for our Train and Freight Operators and supported our front-line teams with timely and accurate insights”

Liam Allen BSc (Hons) CEng MPWI Route Engineer

Hubble started in 2018 in its seedling form. It has now scaled and developed into an enterprise grade AI digital lineside inspection system used widely by Network Rail Routes – including Anglia, East Midlands, Kent and Sussex. Front-line teams are now using the same forward-facing footage to automatically classify biodiversity habitats and hazardous species detection. Importantly, Hubble is not innovation for innovation sakes – it has delivered real-world benefits including:

Inspection Efficiency – use of Hubble is at least twice as fast when compared to cab-rides and manual video review.

Safety –Network Rail have reduced boots on ballast to inspect and plan interventions. With the Hubble team, Network Rail also developed the world’s first method to automatically alert users to obstructed cess paths before they go onto the infrastructure.

Reliability & Performance – humans get tired watching video; computers do not. Hubble inspects over 5,000 kilometres of track each month to provide critical insights to front-line teams.

Industry Collaboration – Hubble utilises a collaborative model; working with over 23 major rail organisations in cross industry partnerships to get the most and make best use out of the different organisations strengths in the rail ecosystem.

Environment – Hubble reduces the amount of travel to conduct site visits and provides ecologists with up-todate information on three key biodiversity and habitat types.

Hubble delivers a net financial benefit of £2,000,000 per year per Route. This figure only includes benefits associated with time saved. It does not include other financial benefits associated with safety and performance improvements.

Hubble was initially supported by Network Rail, Innovate UK and the Department of Transport back in 2018. Since then, with Network Rail and Train Operating Companies continued support and feedback, Hubble has transformed into one of Network Rail’s modern AI and data success stories. A shining example of how a small idea about using data which is already collected by the industry can bring transformative industry benefits and support the shift to preventative maintenance of the lineside.

CONTACT:

haydon@crosstech.co.uk

+44(0)7796600458

TRANSPENNINE

Class 185 Remote Condition Monitoring Project – Unlocking digital potential

The Class 185 fleet was introduced into service on the TransPennine network by Eversholt Rail, Siemens Mobility and First Group in 2006. It is established as a flagship fleet in the north of England.

Recognising it is a high value fleet, critical to the TransPennine route, all three parties agreed a smarter utilisation of data would support further fleet development. It was recognised that remote condition monitoring could leverage the inherent built-in monitoring capability of the fleet. Allowing real time transmission of data from train-borne sensors to generate actionable insights to better manage fleet performance and operation.

To successfully deliver the technology and embed the process change, a digital transformation journey was started. The scope and philosophy required a data backbone which was developed collaboratively between the three parties, and Siemens global development partners.

The project

Project delivery started in Spring 2021, with hardware installation completed in late summer 2022 and final acceptance testing forecast to complete Spring 2023.

Delivering a significant connectivity upgrade, unlocking and transmitting data in real time from the Multi-Vehicle-Bus (MVB), On-Train-MonitoringRecorder (OTMR), engine Controlled Area Network (CAN) and the braking system.

“The digital solution has allowed the teams to get direct updates on each train and how it is performing, including any areas that need to be prioritised for maintenance. It allows us to see how individual vehicles are doing as well as get an accurate picture across the whole fleet, ensuring these 20-year-old trains can continue to perform at such a high standard and give the best passenger experience has been a real team effort across Siemens Mobility, TransPennine Express and Eversholt Rail.”

Sambit Banerjee, Managing Director of Rolling Stock and Customer Services for Siemens Mobility in the UK

The technology allows users to set rules and algorithms to automate maintenance interventions, unlocking an array of efficiencies. It also democratises data, providing visibility and the ability to manipulate data; allowing technicians, depot managers and operational personnel to design their own dashboards and reports.

Key benefits unlocked include:

Asset Owner – the project enhances the fleet’s capabilities and attractiveness to the current and future customers.

• Maintainer – the project unlocks maintenance efficiencies at a depot level, improving maintenance

“I am very pleased to see Railigent applied to the Class 185 fleet. It is a first class remote condition management and data / decision management system and brings the diagnostic capabilities that we can apply to the Class 185s up to date with newer fleets. It will give colleagues in the Class 185 team from depots, the control room and the network access to exceptional information about the train so that they can respond effectively and quickly to issues that arise, reducing delays and disruption to a minimum. Data from this platform can also be used to support network wide performance and safety improvement work. All in all, the immense value of the Railigent deployment into the Class 185 trains and supporting production systems cannot be overstated.”

Paul Staples, Fleet, Safety and Service Delivery Director at TransPennine Express

planning and delivery, and enhances Siemens capabilities to support the operator, delivering a maintenance cost reduction.

• Operator – the project provides enhanced in-service performance, improved customer satisfaction, and supports targeting best-in-class reliability.

Key enablers include:

A tripartite vision, collaboration and early buy-in ensured the technology was developed to unlock value for all.

• Approaching as a “change project” focussing not only on technology but also on deployment and cultural change within the depot.

Product champions coalition team established to maintain customer focus throughout technology roll out.

The project is now entering the monitoring and benefits realisation phase. The outputs of which will inform development of the technology platform to unlock further value for our customers and passengers.

“I am looking forward to seeing the benefits of this investment and how it will enhance the C185 fleet for the future. Working collaboratively with our valued partners, Siemens and TPE, deploying this technology is the natural next step to take to optimise maintenance and reduce the cost of operation.”

Paul Sutherland, Client Services Director for Eversholt Rail

CONTACT:

Wendy Allington

wendy.allington@eversholtrail.co.uk 07788924352

Luca Fracassi

luca.fracassi@siemens.com

07921246059

Data and Digital Technologies in Rail: Industry needs, opportunities, and priorities

March 2023

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