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.