That’s exactly why we created GBRX, to challenge and accelerate change, to break the pattern of slow adoption that has historically held our railways back. Much of that delay is due to fragmentation, contractual complexities, and the way our system operates. GBRX is our solution to overcoming these barriers, helping to modernise the railway faster and embrace new technology more effectively. GBRX is here to make that happen, operating under Shadow GBR for now and eventually as part of GBR itself. And in the coming months, you’ll see even more progress as we move forward.
Lord Peter Hendy Minister for Rail
Pioneering breakthroughs in technology
Toufic Machnouk, Managing Director, GBRX
In early 2025, the Secretary of State for Transport set out five strategic priorities for Shadow Great British Railways (GBR). Among them was a bold and essential objective: to unlock strategic innovation by convening world-leading innovators and accelerating the adoption of technologies that improve efficiency, enhance passenger experience and deliver real economic value.
To meet this challenge, GBRX was created as the sector’s strategic innovation body. We’ve been given a clear and important mandate: to break down the barriers to innovation that enable the railway to adopt the technologies it needs to thrive in the decades ahead
People expect a better system – one that is digitally enabled, more adaptive and more responsive. And the pace of change we now require is driven by the need to evolve a large industrial network into a more dynamic, efficient and customer-focused railway.
The creation of GBRX recognises that reform provides the opportunity of a generation to address some of the fundamental barriers to technological innovation in our sector. Reform allows us to create a strategic sector approach for innovation, to occupy the space at the crossroads of track and train, and to collaborate in the field within the operating businesses of the sector.
We know how hard this is, from our journey with mobilising the sector for digital signalling, one of the most ambitious technological shifts in the railway’s history, we faced a system constrained by organisational and commercial fragmentation, technical complexity and the weight of past failures.
Progress was enabled by rethinking the fundamental approach. We had to create the largest industrial partnership in the world, address commercial barriers, integrate operations and engineering together, centre on people and drive business change across tens of organisations.
We learned that innovation happens when the right conditions are created for it, when the people responsible for the problem are also part of the solution, and when capability is built to do things we can’t do today.
That’s the foundation of GBRX. We’re bringing together frontier technologists, technical experts and operational leaders to pioneer a better future for rail. We focus on solving real problems with problem-owners in the real world, and creating the conditions for technology to improve how the system works.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a railway that works better for people.
We face a deep technology adoption challenge, rooted in complexity and inertia. Even established technologies struggle. The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people. So we are pioneering a better way. We are building an ambitious strategic capability – to do what we cannot today and reshape the barriers into new paths.
Toufic Machnouk Managing Director, GBRX
The Why
Britain’s railway was built on innovation. But today, even established technologies struggle to take hold in this sector. GBRX exists to change that, by tackling the conditions that block progress and enabling breakthroughs to be adopted, scaled and embedded.
Why strategic innovation fails
From its very inception 200 years ago, Britain’s railway has been a symbol of engineering ingenuity, pioneering technological innovation. It was an inventor and aggregator of technologies that solved one of the problems people had been trying to solve for millennia: how to move large and heavy objects, on the ground, at speed, to connect people and places.
Britain has led the way in transport technology, from building the world’s first passenger railway to developing high-speed trains, and a diversity of technologies throughout. But over recent years, the sector has struggled as the digital era has brought new technological trends that require a different approach.
This fall from grace has been a difficult experience for the industry, but we now know the conditions that need to be addressed. The journey to mobilise the sector for the transition to digital signalling allowed us to see and experience this in a high-definition, panoramic view.
Prior to the East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP), European Train Control System (ETCS) had several false starts. Despite ETCS being an established technology, delivering it was not possible in our sector. The technology worked. The problem was the system.
What is it about the system that made an established technology almost impossible to adopt?
The learning was clear: we had to expose and address the underlying system conditions in order to enable technological adoption.
In my
personal experience of starting the process of introducing the first mainline digital signalling capability on the East Coast Mainline, I have to say, honestly, trying to deliver digital signalling, shifting capability from track to train within the existing industry structure, is as close to impossible as anything I’ve ever encountered in my life.
Andrew Haines Chief Executive, Network Rail
Why
strategic innovation fails continued
What matters most is how the railway performs every day for its customers, people, and goods alike. Innovation in rail draws heavily on technology, but success also depends on looking beyond it. Stephenson didn’t invent the metal rail or the steam engine, he assembled existing ideas into something transformative. We must do the same, learning from other sectors to accelerate improvement and deliver better service.
Robin Gisby Chief Executive Officer, DfT Operator Limited
The challenge for innovation in rail
Innovation is a term that generates different images in people’s minds because of popular culture and the role of big tech companies in our world today. Innovation is fundamentally the process of creating things that solve problems or improve human experience. Depending on the kind of problem, the opportunity and the conditional environment, this can take on different approaches and methods.
When we think of innovation, we shouldn’t just think of the creative process, or a way of generating wacky ideas. That’s not innovation.
The railway is a system optimising for safety and certainty. That’s a necessary thing. But it also makes it hard to try, develop and adopt things that change a part of how that system works at scale.
Our big technological challenges sit at the crossroads of track and train. Layers of complexity – technical, industrial, commercial – have made even what should be readily possible feel almost impossible.
It’s why established technologies like digital signalling took more than 20 years to find a scalable delivery path in Britain, and it’s still immensely challenging to deliver across tens of operating and technology organisations.
We’re not just trying to make technological innovation easier; we’re trying to make it possible across track and train. That means confronting the conditions that make it so difficult.
This is where GBRX comes in. Our role is to create the enabling conditions for strategic innovation, to turn established technology, technical advancements and the best ideas into adoptable solutions that stick.
What innovation is solving for
We’ve identified three deep-rooted friction points that innovation must work through to overcome:
inertia
Innovation is naturally hard because it works against the inertia of the world. It’s changing the rhythm of the way things are. People are at the heart of the way things are, and they happen in a certain way today with designed and natural incentives people are used to. The world naturally resists organised change.
In rail, operational and cultural routines are deeply embedded for good reason. They’ve been built over time to manage safety, regulation, consistency of operation and rules for managing complexity.
The bigger the system, the bigger the inertia – and the bigger the clarity and energy required to make change in it.
Industrial complexity
The railway is a vast, interconnected, safety-critical industrial system, with long asset life cycles, a safety-critical engineering and operating environment, and a high cost of change.
The system has 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 structures, 2,600 stations, 15,000 vehicles and more than 60,000 frontline staff – every change impacts something else.
And when the system is this large, even modest innovation comes with cost, risk and important trade-offs. Scaling is not just technical, it’s organisational and commercial.
fragmentation
The railway sector is made up of many organisations – public, private and independent – with distributed and diffused accountabilities for the system across track and train.
It contains more than 24 train operators, 10 freight carriers, 14 infrastructure routes, multiple regulators, tens of Rolling Stock Owning Companies, tens of Original Equipment Manufacturers and public agencies, all operating under different incentives, funding cycles and legal frameworks.
Our system divides accountability. Often, one organisation carries the cost while the benefits land elsewhere. Strategic innovation demands a purposeful and integrated clarity and energy.
Natural
Commercial
What innovation is solving for continued
The result?
A system that makes the possible feel impossible.
An environment that makes it very difficult for technology to penetrate. A market of technologies that struggle to move out of the application pilot. A diversity of ideas that can’t change the real world.
Customers are frustrated. Operators suffer with unsolved and solvable problems. Innovators stop trying. Suppliers lose interest.
This isn’t just frustrating. It’s corrosive. It makes it appear as though innovation is not possible.
This is the core challenge that GBRX exists to solve: to address the system conditions that make it more capable of understanding and adopting technological change.
The crossroads of track and train
Some of the most important technological problems and opportunities that our sector has – the ones that move the needle the most – are those that sit at the crossroads of track and train.
These are not problems that can be solved in isolation. They exist in the seams of the system. And that’s the real issue: strategic innovation in rail is rarely isolated or proportional. The most impactful changes are the hardest to tackle. They require the most purposeful effort, cross the most boundaries, and expose the most complexity. Because they cross this boundary, they amplify the conditions and demand a deeper response.
And they’re often the ones we avoid. They demand cooperation across organisations, risk ownership across businesses, and benefits that are hard to isolate.
Take legacy infrastructure management as an example. Today we largely depend on people to go and look at assets to inspect them and run a dedicated fleet of trains to measure certain things. A technological railway would have in-service technology monitoring and assessing various aspects of infrastructure, providing a data- and insight-rich predictive model of the railway, enabling smarter decisions and better outcomes for passengers.
Sounds simple. But it isn’t.
To do that we have to confront several difficult questions: on technology ownership, asset ownership, intellectual property, commercial agreements, who owns the data, and who’s responsible for the system integrity and its assurance. The cost is in one place and the benefit is in another. The technology needs to be developed across track, train and several asset owners, public, private, equity and debt.
A technology that seems like a breakthrough in principle can quickly face difficult friction in its path of adoption. There’s no way of addressing this today even when the technology is right. You’re not just shifting technology – you’re required to navigate commercial lines, accountability frameworks and workforce roles.
We saw this in digital signalling. An established technology, it still took two decades to find an adoptable path – and demanded a shift in how delivery models, funding, risk, learning and sponsorship worked. These aren’t just technical problems; they’re adoption problems.
What we found is a system designed, incentivised and funded for the procurement of familiar things within existing boundaries on one end, and to accommodate for some experiments and pilots on the other. But there is a fundamental gap in how to create the path to adoption and scale through the complex barriers and inherent conditions.
The breakthrough only came when we developed an innovative model that could overcome the barriers to adoption in a purposeful way.
That experience and understanding has shaped GBRX. It proved that meaningful breakthroughs in technology adoption are possible if we create the right approach for it, and combine lived experience from within rail and the best from outside of it.
Learning from others
Rail is one of several complex, high-stakes systems trying to change, and we’ve taken inspiration from those who are trying and those who’ve done it well.
The NHS showed how a fragmented public service could start to unify data systems and enable agile innovation, even in a highly regulated, safety-critical and humancentred space.
Rolls-Royce redefined asset management using digital twins, transforming maintenance from scheduled inspections to real-time, predictive insight, with direct commercial benefits.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and innovation leaders like Alphabet’s X, in Google’s parent company, have demonstrated the value of protected and purposeful radical innovation environments. These have been designed with specific innovation models, capabilities and methods built to experiment, learn and evolve in the real world, to figure out what works and scales. The X company gave birth to Waymo, the autonomous car company. ARPA created GPS, Boston Dynamics robotics, and the internet among many other major technologies.
The UK government has recognised this with the recent Advanced Research and Inventions Agency, purposefully created and designed to provide the right environment and conditions for radical innovation in several fields.
Such initiatives work not by magic but because they employ a known, shared and established approach to innovation. What we learn from these interactions is what it takes to deliver real-world technological innovation in an industrial environment today.
From these lessons, GBRX has designed a strategic approach that responds directly to the inherent challenges with innovation and the structural realities of the rail system.
They have helped us shape a model for the railway sector that we know works, if we can make the conditions true.
GBRX – A different approach to innovation
GBRX is the strategic enabler directly addressing the systemic conditions and challenges holding back strategic railway innovation.
GBRX is focused on delivering breakthroughs where innovation is most important – unlocking technology at the crossroads of track and train and overcoming the structural barriers that prevent progress. Our goal is to enable technology adoption and scale.
Innovation is at the heart of our strategy. Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation, it requires collaboration, partnership and a commitment to using technology to solve real world problems.
Laura Shoaf
Chair, Shadow Great British Railways
The How
Delivering strategic innovation demands more than good ideas. It demands the ability to navigate complexity and cross boundaries with purpose in order to move from ambition to real-world adoption.
We are a strategic enabler, designed to create the conditions that innovation needs to succeed – and the commitment to see it through. Drawing on world-leading practice, including the X method pioneered by Alphabet, our approach is intentional, purposeful and grounded. We frame challenges from first principles, co-develop solutions with those closest to delivery, and adapt in motion to embed breakthrough technologies at the crossroads of track and train.
In January 2025, the Secretary of State for Transport set out five strategic priorities for the transition to Great British Railways. GBRX was created to deliver the fourth: “Unlock strategic innovation by partnering with world-leading innovators to improve how the railway works for people – and support the UK as a technology and AI power.”
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform our railway around the needs of passengers and freight customers. That means breaking down silos and delivering better services that are simpler, more reliable, and better value for money. GBRX amplifies the opportunity of reform by working across track and train to unlock strategic innovation and technology to improve the railway for passengers and taxpayers.
The five conditions to unlock strategic innovation
We have defined five essential conditions for strategic innovation to succeed in our ecosystem. These have been established through extensive learning with world-leading innovators and are the fundamental realities that GBRX needs to embody in order to unlock strategic innovation. These are the conditions that respond to the inherent challenges of innovation and the inherent realities of our sector, without which the reality will fall short of ambition.
These are the conditions GBRX is designed to create.
Crossroads
GBRX sits at the crossroads of the sector because strategic innovation crosses the boundaries of infrastructure and operations, public and private, policy and delivery. That means bridging across track and train.
Commercial
GBRX operates with fiscal and commercial agility because technological innovation involves engaging with developing, emerging and diverse technology markets that require different commercial approaches. That means shaping market conditions that support risk, reward delivery, and enable solutions to emerge and scale.
3
Capability
GBRX employs and builds capabilities that allow us to see and do things we cannot see and do today. Technological innovation requires ideas, skills and capabilities that bring to life things that don’t exist today. That means mobilising the best technical minds inside and outside the sector, so we’re never limited by what’s been done before.
4
Convening
GBRX is a convening force that provides clarity and direction. This is because strategic innovation requires the bringing together of innovators and experts with problem owners and opportunities in a perpetual and dynamic way, within a coherent context. That means connecting the dots between those who have problems and don’t know the solution exists, and those who have solutions that don’t know the problem they can solve.
5
Collaborating
GBRX works within the operating organisations in deep collaboration with problem owners. This is because innovation can only happen in contact with the real world – with opportunities evolved in a way that figures out what’s required to make them work. That means working in the field and having the commitment to see them through.
The GBRX product
The GBRX product is designed to embody the necessary conditions for strategic innovation through five specific features that define its capability and operating model.
Business function
Strategic advisors
Strategic relationships
X method
Network of experts
GBRX has strategic relationships with world-leading innovators, world-class technology organisations, frontier academic institutions and sectors leading in applied industrial technological innovation –allowing us to see and do things we cannot see and do today.
GBRX has a network of expert strategic advisors, comprising entrepreneurs and innovators who guide us, support initiatives and provide deep and diverse insights.
GBRX has a core capability made up of business functions geared to the effective pioneering of technological innovation – with the required sponsorship, commercial and technical capabilities to collaborate in the field with problem and opportunity owners.
GBRX is extended by a network of technical, technological experts and talent from across the sector – allowing us to employ the right skills from a diversity of disciplines to collaborate on pioneering innovations.
GBRX has adopted the best methods – inspired by world-leading innovators like Alphabet’s X company – for understanding challenges, piloting opportunities and creating breakthroughs in technological innovation in the real world.
The GBRX business function: how we pioneer technological innovation
The portfolio function:
The executing capability, adopting a Management of Portfolio (MoP) model.
The organisation function:
Capability, talent and culture development, both within the body and in interactions with sector organisations.
The engagement function:
The communications and relationship management capability, generating the campaign of understanding and interaction.
The finance function:
The foundational business capability including finance, commercial, governance, assurance and funding. The technical function: Providing the engineering expertise, made of up both sector and frontier technical capabilities.
The strategy function:
Ensuring the evolution of learning and development of the body through experience.
The GBRX product continued Strategic capabilities
How we activate our pioneering capability for innovation
GBRX’s core strength comes from the strategic relationships we build and activate:
• world-leading innovator partners, frontier technologists, researchers and sibling industries who help us see what’s possible beyond our own horizon
• a network of diverse advisors and entrepreneurs who guide our understanding and action
• diverse technical experts from within the sector across its many technical disciplines
• operators and asset owners who understand how to make innovation safe, human and adoptable
• suppliers and SMEs who bring energy, creativity and new ideas.
These relationships allow us to see and do things we can’t see and do today, and to connect the dots between challenges and opportunities in ways we have not been able to before.
The GBRX product continued The X method
The X method: how we deliver breakthroughs in the real world
GBRX engages with the application environment through three primary mechanisms: Portfolio, Platform and Playbook.
The Portfolio provides coherency, direction and prioritization, the Platform enables suppliers to engage with value propositions – and for them to be adequately tested for development and scale – and the Playbook is a method of innovating in the real world that allows the right opportunities to be understood and piloted, and for breakthroughs to be generated.
The X Portfolio
The X portfolio guides strategy, prioritises investment and governs initiatives – ensuring we focus on what matters most.
It provides:
• sector-strategic alignment of technology innovation
• prioritisation and maximisation of sector resources
• oversight of initiatives and course correction
• learning, stopping, compost and reprioritising.
The X Platform
The X platform is our structured, transparent interface with the market. It connects problem owners with suppliers, SMEs and researchers, and supports them through early development, shaping and safety assurance.
The X Playbook
The X playbook is inspired and adopted from Alphabet’s X company, a world-leading innovator and inventor. It is a living experience of what it takes to solve some of the world’s biggest problems with technology and innovation – and what it takes to organise capabilities to achieve that in the real world.
It provides:
• open and structured opportunity invitation process with the market
• presentation of fundamental and conditional problem statements
• securing of resources where opportunity presents credible prospects.
How we understand problems
• Framing problems with first principles
• Diagnosing driving conditions
• Solving for the hardest condition first
How we pilot opportunities
• Co-piloting of initiates with problem owner
• Deploying diverse capability relevant to task
• Shifting perspectives intentionally at regular stages
How we create breakthroughs
• Impacting reality by walking
• Creating ‘version zero’ steps that test scaling
• Learning from what doesn’t work – and evolving
What it means to be engaged in GBRX
A GBRX engagement goes beyond a project. It’s a living movement to unlock technological breakthroughs that scale in the places where they’re needed. It starts where real-world delivery happens on the ground, in the hands of operators, engineers, planners and suppliers. It’s co-owned by those who live it, shaped in the conditions it must work in, and supported with the technical, strategic and commercial tools to scale. These are practical applications designed to endure.
If you’re part of a GBRX engagement, this is what it feels like:
I’m co-sponsored by the people who own the problem and are responsible for delivery. I’m creating the commercial conditions needed to scale, not just prove. I spend time with users and technical experts, reframing the problem as I solve it. I tried something that didn’t work, but we learned fast and changed direction to what works. I’m supported by experts across domains – rail, AI and human factors. My perspective changes constantly because the process is designed to challenge it. And I’m not alone – I’m supported by experts with deep and diverse insights.
Amplifying the opportunity of GBR
GBRX is the sector’s strategic innovation body, created to deliver the fourth of the Secretary of State’s Shadow Great British Railways (SGBR) priorities – and designed to go further.
We’re working within SGBR and, when it is established, GBRX will form part of Great British Railway as its strategic innovation body – ensuring strategic innovation across track and train is central to how the railway works better for people.
GBRX is an enabler for sector reform by working at the crossroads of track and train, connecting strategic innovation with better outcomes for passengers, freight customers and the people who operate our railway.
The What
Strategic innovation needs direction. It’s not enough to remove barriers, we also must know where to focus our effort. ‘The What’ defines this focus. It sets out the opportunity spaces where technological innovation can make a significant impact across Britain’s railway.
Each one is grounded in real system needs and shaped by the advanced technologies around us, able to deliver system improvements across track and train. These are high-value frontiers where GBRX will convene the sector, mobilise capability, and drive technological innovation and adoption. Together, they form the foundation of a railway that works better for people.
Horizons: A strategic framework of action
Strategic innovation uses a three-horizon framework of readiness and impact to guide action. It defines three types of activity along the same timeline.
With strategic innovation, it’s important to understand that long-term impact depends on progressive action today. Innovation requires sustained commitment. Some opportunities may take years to reach maturity, but to do so they require the right attention and investment now, so that the capability, people and partnerships are developed to create the conditions that enable adoption.
Horizon 1 – Adopt
Established technologies, already in use elsewhere or trialled in rail, that could be deployed at scale. Our job is to overcome the friction of adoption and enable scale.
Horizon 2 – Adapt
Emerging technologies that show strong potential but need refinement to fit the railway’s complex, safety-critical environment. GBRX exists to bridge that gap – tailoring solutions, shaping commercial models and creating a path in our system.
Horizon 3 – Advance
Technologies that don’t yet exist in rail but could fundamentally shift how the network operates. Here, the needs of rail need to be embedded in its fundamental development. Our role is to shape these technologies for rail, experiment, convene new partnerships and shape the conditions for breakthroughs.
GBRX is about creating a community that innovators can engage with, one that is less risk-averse and more open to testing new ideas. You still need to make the case for change, but we are working to break down the barriers that have historically slowed progress.
Andrew Haines Chief Executive, Network Rail
Where innovation must land
GBRX is targeting the key systems, services and technologies that will unlock a betterperforming railway. Our focus is on the most pressing operational problems, the technologies that can address them, and the enabling conditions required to make them stick.
The railway system can be broken down into five key themes. This helps us understand how particular activities evolve with technology, and where they sit in improving outcomes for passengers and stakeholders.
Passenger and customer experience Network operations
Current state:
Fragmented and inconsistent experience, with poor visibility and information during disruption. Disjointed customer journeys. Legacy ticketing systems and outdated infrastructure.
Future state:
Intelligent, joined-up services that understand the needs of passengers and can respond to them.
Current state:
Rail operations are reactive and fragmented, reliant on human intuition and intermittent data. Decisions are often based on what’s already happened, not what’s likely to happen next.
Future state:
A live, data-rich and insight-driven network – one that senses, predicts, and responds in real time to keep people and goods moving.
Key areas of action:
• Smart station and onboard technologies
• Journey information powered by rich operational data
• Seamless digital interactions
Key areas of action:
• Real-time, AI-powered decision support
• Predictive analytics for disruption management
• Integration of rich operational and asset data across track and train
Network planning Asset management Workforce and skills
Current state:
Heavily manual, highly constrained by legacy tools and organisational complexity. Network plans are difficult to develop and change, and they struggle to completely reflect real-world conditions.
Future state:
Dynamic, data-driven planning powered by rich data, advanced computation, digital twins, and learning models that enable optimal network utilisation.
Key areas of action:
• Digital twins for network behaviour and scenario modelling
• Advanced analytics for performance forecasting
• Automation of planning workflows and industry planning dynamics
Current state:
Diverse infrastructure, manual inspections and reactive maintenance dominate. Costs of reliability are high and predictive insight is low.
Future state:
A proactive, technology-enabled system that anticipates asset behaviour and failure before it happens – saving time and money, and focusing intelligence on incremental improvements to outcomes.
Key areas of action:
• Computer vision for track and train condition monitoring
• AI-led predictive asset models
• Embedded sensing throughout systems and in operational services
Current state:
An ageing workforce, siloed expertise, a growing capability gap in emerging technologies and the need to attract the next generation workforce into rail.
Future state:
A modern, multidisciplinary, diverse workforce fluent in the technological tools of today and tomorrow, applying intelligence to improve outcomes for passengers and stakeholders.
Key areas of action:
• Data science, data engineering and advanced technology apprenticeships and training
• Workforce tools powered by AI
• Development of workforce with new technology skills
The technologies that will power a better railway
We’re backing technologies that are necessary for the long-term viability and sustainability of the railway. They will define the next era, and enable the railway to operate smarter, safer, and more efficiently across the entire system. Our role is to develop, scale and industrialise the application of these technologies for the railway system.
Data science and engineering to bridge the gap between business and technology
The railway generates enormous volumes of operational and infrastructural data – but much of it is fragmented, inconsistent or underused. By developing consistent data architecture and pipelines, we can turn disconnected systems into useful intelligence. This enables smarter tools, better integration and more responsive operation of the network.
Advanced analytics to unlock system-wide insight
Analytics transforms raw data into actionable intelligence. By layering real-time and historical analysis, we can develop models that understand patterns, forecast performance, and support evidence-based decisions across planning, maintenance and customer service. This is key to moving from reactive fixes to predictive strategies.
Machine learning and AI to enable rich and adaptive decision-making
AI allows the railway to deploy targeted intelligence that will radically enhance the capability of our skilled workforce. Whether it’s forecasting system behaviours, automating controls or optimising routes and schedules, machine learning builds deep and dynamic intelligence into the system – learning over time to form vast data sets to reduce noise and disruption and improve efficiency.
Sensing technology to deliver continuous, ground-truth monitoring
Sensors embedded in infrastructure and vehicles can monitor the physical state and behaviour of the railway in real time – enabling the detection of condition changes and anomalies before they become failures. This shifts maintenance from periodic checks to continuous assurance and predictive models – improving reliability and safety and cutting unnecessary costs.
Supercomputing to simulate, stress-test and optimise
With millions of variables at play, the railway requires extraordinary processing power to model real-world scenarios. High-performance computing makes it possible to build and apply digital models with vast data sets, to explore complex future scenarios, test resilience under stress and optimise complex trade-offs faster than ever before.
Automation to increase speed and consistency of operations
From station systems to signalling and onboard functions, automation reduces latency, improves accuracy, and frees human operators to focus on complex, people-centred tasks. It also supports greater scalability – building capacity without proportional cost increases.
Robotics to extend human capability and enable safer network management
From drones to high-output machines, the development of robotic technologies has the potential to extend the capabilities of our workforce and increase safety, efficiency and flexibility in how we manage the network.
Quantum engineering to unlock breakthroughs beyond today’s limits
Quantum technologies offer radically new capabilities – from ultra-precise positioning systems that don’t rely on external signals, to quantum algorithms that solve optimisation problems beyond classical computing’s reach. These breakthroughs will redefine how we model, plan and manage the railway in the future.
Energy technology to unlock system capability and drive decarbonisation
Technology can improve how energy is stored, managed and consumed across industrial systems. This includes traction, onsite renewables, smart management, microgrids and regenerative systems.
Technological trends
Railway system themes
The railway system themes and the technological trends merge together to present compelling opportunities that improve how the railway works. We call these ‘opportunity spaces’.
Opportunity spaces
• Data integration and advanced analytics
• Computer vision
• Train-borne technology for asset management
• System models for network and asset management
• Network planning, predictability and passenger communication
• Advanced computation
• Data science and technology capability
• Train control technology
• Positioning technology
• Energy generation and management
Opportunity spaces
These are the most impactful areas for system-wide modernisation at present –where advanced technologies intersect with the real-world needs of Britain’s railway. Each represents a high-value, high-potential frontier for improvement in how the system works, where GBRX will generate clarity and energy to turn potential into advancements. 30 Data integration and advanced analytics
Why it matters
and advanced
An integrated, high-quality data environment across track and train is essential to unlock the power of AI. It will enable advanced analytics and machine learning to better understand network behaviour, predict future scenarios, and improve decision-making in operations and planning.
Where we are today
Railway data is fragmented across organisations and systems, in many cases uncodified, limiting its availability, consistency, accessibility, usability and integration. There are significant commercial and technical barriers to overcome to enable data integration, including challenges around data ownership, intellectual property rights (IPR) and the development of required data streams that do not yet exist.
What’s next
• Integrate track and train data within integrated rail alliance environments
• Integrate real-time operational data from multiple systems within integrated platforms
• Resolve upstream data issues through Internet of Things (IoT) sensing and improved data condition and structuring
• Develop machine learning models to enable dynamic scheduling and predictive maintenance
• Develop AI applications across the track–train boundary to support scenario planning and decision-making
Computer vision
Transforming asset management with intelligent vision
Why it matters
The rail industry relies heavily on manual inspections, which are time-consuming, resource-intensive and limited by the need for physical access. Computer vision offers a transformative alternative, enabling faster, more consistent asset monitoring. Early applications are starting to help detect defects that require action. As technologies in these areas advance, such systems have the potential to better interpret asset condition and predict degradation – supporting improved safety, reducing the need for trackside inspections, enhancing efficiency, and boosting the reliability and performance of the rail network.
Where we are today
Computer vision is emerging as a foundation for intelligent asset management. Industry adoption is in its early stages. There are a limited number of companies focused on specific use cases such as track, overhead line electrification, and vegetation. Development is constrained by commercial complexity, investment risk, and barriers regarding IPR and data use. There are many applicable use-cases and scaling will require cross-industry alignment, multi-source data integration and a trusted safety framework to support AI-assisted outputs.
What’s next
• Define a technology roadmap to reduce reliance on a dedicated New Measurement Train (NMT) fleet
• Develop commercial models that reduce IPR barriers and support faster AI development
• Support fusion of new sensor technologies to displace legacy inspection methods
• Find ways to reduce human effort in training through data structuring and infrastructure-based markers
• Experiment with network modelling using computer vision technologies
Train-borne technology for asset management
Train-borne sensors delivering insight at network scale
Why it matters
Manual inspections are resource-intensive, costly and inherently reactive. Onboard sensor systems enable continuous infrastructure monitoring, allowing early detection of condition changes and supporting predictive maintenance. This improves reliability, enhances safety and reduces cost.
Where we are today
Sensing technologies for in-service vehicles, such as track geometry and condition monitoring, are developing in viability. Progress is limited by technical, commercial and intellectual property barriers. Unlocking the full value of train-borne monitoring will require a more coordinated, system-wide approach to development, deployment and data sharing.
What’s next
• Establish commercial agreements with train manufacturers to support technical co-development
• Formulate a discipline-specific sensing technology roadmap that reduces reliance on a dedicated NMT fleet
• Establish technical and commercial pathways for managing system integrity across multiple organisations
• Define assurance pathways for system adoption and transition into operational practice
• Build organisational capability to understand and respond to real-time condition changes at scale
System models for network and asset management
Better modelling for a more predictable and performant railway
Why it matters
The railway depends on models to plan the network, manage assets and assess future scenarios. High-fidelity, real-worldrepresentative models would allow better understanding of network behaviour and asset performance, enabling faster, more accurate planning and scenario testing. This is essential to improving network resilience, asset reliability and investment decisions.
Where we are today
Current models are partial, fragmented, often manual and lack real-time data integration. Most asset models don’t sufficiently reflect actual degradation patterns or support high-quality predictive analysis. The use of AI, machine learning and automation is limited, and data is scattered across multiple systems – preventing a unified view of asset condition and lifecycle.
What’s next
• Advance the use of smart imaging technologies to support the development of system models
• Define and validate the role and application of system models in collaboration with industry partners
• Develop technical and commercial architecture that treats system models as core industry assets
• Build organisational capability to create, maintain and evolve data and system models
Network planning, predictability and passenger communication
AI-powered forecasting for resilience and recovery
Why it matters
The network plan underpins everything the railway delivers to passengers. It aggregates a complex and dynamic system with a vast and diverse range of inputs, where small changes can have widespread impact. Today’s tools are limited in their ability to forecast outcomes accurately. AI-powered forecasting will help us better predict, adapt to and recover from disruption, making the railway more resilient and responsive to real-world conditions. Crucially, it will also enable clearer, faster passenger communication during disruption and improve journey confidence.
Where we are today
Planning is a highly intensive, resource-demanding, complex and integrated process. Early AI-based models are being developed to better understand the opportunity of different approaches based on diverse and varied data sets. Asset condition data is underutilised, and predictive planning is largely disconnected from live operational data.
What’s next
• Coordinate the development of predictive models across infrastructure and operations
• Expand delay-prediction models to include asset and infrastructure data
• Test and compare different AI approaches to identify those best aligned with real-world outcomes
• Integrate advanced insights into long-term network planning using advanced computation
Advanced computation
Supercomputing and quantum innovation for a smarter, faster railway
Why it matters
Britain’s railway generates vast quantities of unstructured data. Traditional computing can’t keep pace with the volume and complexity. Supercomputing, quantum technologies and neuromorphic processing offer the potential to simulate entire networks, optimise schedules, and extract insights and understanding of asset behaviour from complex, unstructured data – at unprecedented speed and scale. This technology could fundamentally bypass traditional development pathways and shift how we understand, manage and predict railway behaviour across the entire system.
Where we are today
The UK hosts several supercomputers, including the Isambard system at the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) commissioned in late 2024. Quantum research is at an early stage, but initial use cases suggest strong potential in areas such as network planning, asset performance and disruption modelling.
What’s next
• Form strategic partnerships with UK centres for supercomputers
• Support AI exploitation through secure, trusted data environments
• Define quantum use-cases with operators, focused on planning and optimisation
• Explore neuromorphic computing for ultra-fast interpretation of sensor data
• Develop cost-aware experimentation pathways to avoid investment in soon-to-be-outdated tech
• Begin shaping a market architecture for advanced computation
Data science and technology capability
Bridging the gap between business operations and technology with a skilled workforce
Why it matters
AI and data science are going to become dominant technical fields in business and industry, and they can transform the railway with a technology-skilled workforce. Without developing this capability, the sector will not be able to capitalise on this opportunity.
Where we are today
We have limited data science and engineering skills in the sector, limited use of data science methods and limited development of data-driven advanced tools such as machine learning models and AI. A strategic approach to data science capability is being developed with the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) and other technical institutions.
What’s next
• Launch sector data science and engineering apprenticeship, targeting various levels of qualification
• Create sector data science and AI community, to rotate talent across organisations and expand capability
• Work with technical institutions to shape operational training of wider workforce
• Position railway careers as digitally and technologically enabled, to attract new talent as the workforce demographic changes
• Develop and implement programme of technology learning for the sector’s workforce
Train control technology
Simplifying fitment, reducing cost and unlocking the future of digital signalling
Why it matters
Digital signalling enables greater capacity, better reliability and long-term financial sustainability of the network. Rollout remains challenging due to commercial complexity in rail vehicle modifications, infrastructure transition costs and market capacity. A new wave of innovation is needed to unlock barriers and systemise deployment.
Where we are today
Progress is being made within the Industry Partnership for Digital Railway (IPDR). However, rail vehicle modifications remain complex and challenging. There is strong potential for modular onboard systems, low-cost signalling solutions, advanced technology-based scheme development and system testing, and simulation-based transition training.
What’s next
• Support real-world development and testing of modular onboard systems in UK operating environments
• Expand simulation-based training to reduce the need for dual-system operation during rollout
• Trial alternative, lower-cost digital signalling solutions on secondary and tertiary routes
• Open digital signalling frameworks to encourage innovation from new market entrants
Positioning technology
Precision without trackside infrastructure: positioning the railway for the future
Why it matters
Current train-positioning systems are fundamental to the safe and effective running of the railway network, yet limited by distributed trackside infrastructure offering low-resolution location data – limiting capacity and operational flexibility. Advanced positioning technology such as quantum inertial navigation systems could provide continuous, high-precision positioning – even in tunnels or GPS-denied environments –free from today’s complex track-based systems. This unlocks network capability and reduces infrastructure dependency and cost.
Where we are today
Quantum positioning is in a phase of significant development. Research by institutions like Imperial College London is advancing at pace and requires targeted development for the railway to overcome key challenges around technical application and safety reliability. Other positioning technologies based on sensor fusion are in early adoption and require development for safety-critical applications.
What’s next
• Accelerate the applied development of quantum positioning in operational rail environments
• Support development of fusion positioning solutions that combine AI, GPS and computer vision
• Define technical standards to support integration with signalling systems and guide future technology development
Energy generation and management
A smarter approach to energy that powers performance and sustainability
Why it matters
Demand for energy is growing. The sector faces challenges in infrastructure capability, cost of electrification and macro fiscal conditions. The sector also plays a significant role in the Government’s decarbonisation strategy. There is a need for smarter, cleaner energy generation, distribution, storage and management to meet the needs of the future.
Where we are today
A diversity of energy innovations is emerging in the fields of battery storage, hydrogen, wind and solar. Innovations are at various levels of maturity and at different stages in their development. AI-based energy management is in the early stages of application.
What’s
next
• Develop a joined-up energy strategy aligned with electrification and net zero targets
• Accelerate the development of localised energy generation and the development of micro-technologies
• Explore new supply models, including microgrids, peer-to-peer trading and direct energy procurement
• Integrate energy data into operational planning and investment decision-making
Pioneering breakthroughs
Pioneering breakthroughs with purposeful action
GBRX maximises the opportunities of rail sector reform by creating the conditions and capabilities that unlock strategic innovation and deliver breakthroughs in technological adoption – improving how the system works for people.
We do this in three action streams: actualising capability for strategic innovation, advancing breakthroughs in technological adoption, aligning movement through sector strategies.
The actions emerge from a deep understanding of the conditions required for strategic innovation, what’s required next in the opportunity spaces and where innovation must land in the system, as outlined in this document.
They are focused on delivering better system performance, system capability and system costs that improve how the railway works for people.
1. Actualising capability for strategic innovation
We’re creating the institutional, commercial and technical capabilities required to unlock strategic innovation and technological adoption.
Publish GBRX 2025
GBRX 2025 articulates the challenge of technology adoption in the sector, the strategic priorities for addressing them, the technological trends and opportunity spaces identified, and how we are convening the sector on advancing breakthroughs within them.
Integrate strategic innovation funding
We’re integrating the fragmented funding landscape into a sector portfolio approach, aligning resources and priorities around high-impact actions within the opportunity spaces.
Launch X Portfolio
The X Portfolio is convening engagements within the opportunity spaces to direct priorities, resources, and technical activity that drive the actions that will advance them.
Open the X Platform
The supplier-facing X Platform is designed to convene innovators in the market with viable paths for adoption within the GBRX priorities. This will connect challenges to credible solutions, scalable opportunities to resources, propositions to experts, directing towards impactful actions.
Publish the X Playbook
The X Playbook condenses the most important learnings and actions for how to create and adopt technological advancements from world-leading innovators such as Alphabet’s X company, the Moonshot Factory and ARPA.
Establish sector innovation and engagement spaces
We’re establishing sector collaboration and engagement spaces that will provide opportunities for the sector to work together to unlock challenges and strengthen delivery of technological developments within the opportunity spaces.
Activate strategic partnerships
We are building strategic relationships with world-leading innovators, frontier technology organisations and sibling sectors to allow us to see and do things we cannot see and do today, and draw on expertise to advance actions in the opportunity spaces.
Mobilise technology skills
In partnership with NSAR, we’re mobilising data science and artificial intelligence apprenticeships for an integrated railway environment, designed to advance technology skills in the sector that allow us to solve shared problems that improve how the system works for people and lay the foundations for the skills of the future.
Technical papers
We are collaborating with experts on publishing detailed technical assessments and priorities for the opportunity spaces to progressively deepen the sector’s diagnosis and understanding of the challenges and direct actions to the most impactful solutions.
Pioneering breakthroughs with purposeful action continued
2. Advancing breakthroughs in technology adoption
We’re advancing the application of high-impact technologies within the opportunity spaces that improve how the system works for people.
Scale computer vision AI
We’re developing advancements in vision and timebased modelling to develop technological applications for improved asset performance. Working with SMEs, we are directing applied machine learning development by building the supporting commercial frameworks, data architecture and intellectual property models that will enable advancements to be created and adopted.
Deploy integrated track-train data systems
Maximising the opportunities of the integrated track-train railways, we are solving data problems and delivering integration data and advanced analytics to improve operational and asset data environments – enabling more insightful and effective decision making that will improve railway performance.
Build supercomputer powered AI models
We are convening the first railway artificial intelligence engagement using supercomputing technologies to transform unstructured data into predictive models that provide insights into performance, asset management, and better integrated decision-making.
Accelerate the development of quantum positioning
With Imperial College London and other partners, we are delivering the world’s first high-speed quantum positioning technology development, advancing its application for railway systems and the UK’s leadership in quantum engineering for critical infrastructure.
Develop a machine vision system and network model
We are developing technologies and applications for the advent of sustainable systems and network models that enable the next-generation technology and methods for simulation of rail network behaviour and performance.
Scaling predictive infrastructure and asset monitoring
We are developing discipline strategic AI enabled systems for train-borne in-service infrastructure and asset monitoring, to enable the scaling of condition-based asset management to strengthen network performance, resilience, safety, and asset sustainability.
Enable next-generation onboard technologies
We are creating new strategic commercial frameworks to develop the market for train control and onboard systems, enabling new market entrants, track train integration of better commercial incentives, and to expand the innovation of needed technology products that accelerate train control and train borne technology adoption.
Establish shared IPR for asset management technology
We are creating cross-sector commercial frameworks with manufacturers and rolling-stock owners to co-develop infrastructure management technologies with shared IPR, overcoming commercial fragmentation and unlocking targeted and purposeful product development.
Develop ways to improve passenger information
We are working with advanced technology providers and human-centred design to develop ways to improve passenger information and engagement, particularly during railway disruption.
3. Aligning movement through sector strategies
We’re aligning the sector around important strategies for AI, commercial and markets, and system safety, and accelerating technology and product development:
Convene
the
sector for the AI Opportunities Action Plan
We’re leading the development of the railway AI strategy and action plan with world-leading experts, to identify and unlock barriers and challenges, implement sector frameworks and guard rails, and drive targeted actions for advancing the industrial application of AI across the sector to drive benefits.
Establish commercial frameworks for emerging technology
We’re working with innovation bodies to develop commercial models that enable engagement with emerging technologies and start-ups to provide pathways to scale, reducing barriers for SMEs and technologists to advance technologies.
Create routes for demonstrating system safety
We’re working with industry bodies to develop adaptive assurance mechanisms that accelerate the safe, practical introduction of developing and frontier technologies into operational environments.
The path is made by walking
GBRX exists to unlock technological adoption where it’s hardest – across the boundaries of track and train – bridging infrastructure and rolling stock, engineering and operations and policy and delivery.
We’ll move beyond fragmented proof-ofconcepts and trials to a structured and purposeful approach, to create the capabilities and conditions that enable breakthroughs in technological advancements to penetrate the system.
The GBRX model is adaptive by design because innovation requires a deeply learning environment to evolve through purposeful action – and to learn with others to find the path that works and sticks.
Our work is deeply collaborative with the operating environment, grounded in the realities of what it takes to make technological innovation work, and fundamentally guided by the mission of improving how the railway works for people.
