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.

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.