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OCTOBER 2026 | ISSUE 326 | £7.95

Britain’s First Main Line Battery-electric Trains

New British-designed and built trains will support the Transpennine Route Upgrade and help decarbonise rail travel across northern England

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THE BUSINESS RESOURCE FOR RAIL

OCTOBER 2026 | ISSUE 326 | £7.95

Britain’s First Main Line Battery-electric Trains

EDITOR’S NOTE

New British-designed and built trains will support the Transpennine Route Upgrade and help decarbonise rail travel across northern England

GEOTECHNICAL DIGITAL RAILWAY More Data, More Passengers

Accessories to make your work easier

INTERVIEWS

Conversations with business leaders from across the industry

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COVER TPE Adessia Stream at York Image Credit – Alstom

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drawing my interest this month was the consultation on Great British Railways’ Access and Use Policy, which will set out how GBR decides who runs trains, where and when, after 30 years of a fragmented track access regime. Open access and freight operators in particular will want to know what safeguards they have when GBR runs both track and train. BRTA’s Richard Pill asks a related question: what say will user groups and voluntary organisations have? The consultation closes on 2 December. Ahead of the Budget on 28 October, the Railway Industry Association has set out its priorities. It wants rail treated as an engine of growth rather than a cost, and a credible plan for passenger numbers that could rise by as much as 97 per cent by 2050. It also wants an end to boom-and-bust in favour of a visible pipeline of work. One detail stands out: RIA wants safeguards in the Railways Bill around the new power to alter five-year funding settlements mid-life, which is precisely the kind of uncertainty the supply chain has asked to be spared. I spoke to Sharon Young MBE of WSP, who draws on Bond Street to explain why building inside a live railway is really a lesson in stakeholder engagement under pressure. I also spoke to Steve Williams of NX UK & Ireland, who is candid that freight has always sat at the back end of the funding equation. James Bain and Johnathan Astbury of Magellan discuss what the Worldline acquisition means for UK rail’s technology backbone. Bain’s view is that the biggest gap is the lack of a clear technology strategy at the heart of GBR. This issue’s digital railway coverage includes my conversation with Jonathan Hyde of Risk Solutions. His modelling found that delays of under three minutes, each too small to prompt attention, do more damage to performance than a handful of troublesome trains. Karsten Oberle of Nokia argues that the move from GSM-R to FRMCS will be defined less by the final cutover than by the years the two systems must run side by side. On the geotechnical side, Maccaferri explains how pre-filled gabions can take an embankment or scour repair from empty track to finished structure in the time it takes to crane the units in. On digital rail, Independent Rail Retailers makes a £500 million case for switching on the Availability Distribution Service, much of which is already built into the reservation system. Lift the look-to-book limits, it argues, and retailers could offer the calendar and “anywhere, anytime” searches passengers now expect. With 23 per cent of users abandoning their search at the first fare screen, it’s hard to see what rail gains by waiting. SAM SHERWOOD-HALE EDITOR

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CONTENTS | ISSUE 326 | OCTOBER 2026

In this issue 8

NEWS

24 VIEWPOINT

All the latest from Greater Thameslink Railway, Alstom, RSSB and more

INTERVIEW 14 Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Sharon Young

MBE, WSP’s Key Account Sponsor for Transport for London, about the firm’s appointment across all six lots of TfL’s Professional Services Framework, lessons from Bond Street, and why early-career professionals need more opportunities to take on real responsibility

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Rémi Habfast, Managing Director of PAXONE at Wiremind, about how generative AI will change the way passengers book tickets and operators run their systems, why disruption management is ripe for automation and what GBR’s push for standardisation means for innovation in UK rail

Pre Metro argues that more than seventeen years of operating the Stourbridge Shuttle offer the Government’s Mass Transit Taskforce practical lessons in delivering affordable public transport, and a route forward for its proposed Dudley Dasher

26 DELIVERING THE GOODS

Alexandra Herdman, Policy Lead – Multimodal at Logistics UK, on why decarbonising rail freight will depend on a wholesystem approach

28 GEOTECHNICAL

French manufacturer Petzl offers complete professional solutions for those working at height or in darkness, from helmets and headlamps to work at height harnesses

30 DIGITAL RAILWAY

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Jonathan Hyde of Risk Solutions about agent-based modelling of rail performance, what it has revealed about the effect of small delays, and how modelling helps operators and Network Rail reach agreement on difficult decisions

35 DIGITAL RAILWAY

A new white paper by Independent Rail Retailers makes a £500 million case for switching on the Availability Distribution Service

INTERVIEW

20 LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Getting to know the UK’s updated Right to Work Regime

22 VIEWPOINT

Russell Brown, Regulatory Projects Manager at the Fundraising Regulator, on how to keep railway stations trusted gateways for charitable giving

36 Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Steve Williams, Managing

Director of NX UK & Ireland, about the cost gap between rail and road freight, the limits of the UK network, supply chain resilience and how the company is approaching decarbonisation and AI

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Talk to our experts: www.rssb.co.uk/services-and-resources/rail-consultancy-services 6

CONTENTS | ISSUE 326 | OCTOBER 2026

39 DIGITAL RAILWAY

Eric Nordling, General Manager at Expretio, makes the case for filling Europe’s trains through smarter pricing

BUSINESS PROFILES 46 Totalkare 49 Scheidt & Bachmann 51 Railway Industry Association

42 DIGITAL RAILWAY

Karsten Oberle, Railway Business Development Lead Europe at Nokia, on designing GSM-R and FRMCS to coexist through the years of migration before the final cutover

53 DTGen 57 Maccaferri 61 Wernick Group Ltd (Hire Division)

44 INTERVIEW

62 PEOPLE Justin Norman, Steven Bishop, Stephen Fidler, Emmanuel Egila, David Muse, James White, Adam Carlin, Dan Mann, Ola Ogun, Neil Holm

For more information visit www.abasurveying.co.uk or call 01483 797111

NEWS

GTR Marks First 100 Days in Public Ownership Greater Thameslink Railway (GTR) has set out the improvements delivered in its first 100 days under public ownership. GTR, which operates Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express services, transferred to DfT Operator Limited (DFTO) on 31 May. A secondary signalling system is being installed in the Thameslink core between Farringdon and Blackfriars, with the first element already in use to help prevent failures that would otherwise cause widespread delays. Increased driver numbers on Thameslink and Great Northern have helped reduce train crew-related cancellations by 69 per cent compared with last year, and GTR’s driver programme will add a further 75 drivers on those routes by the end of 2026. GTR has also introduced automatic ticket acceptance across participating publicly owned operators, allowing customers whose trains are cancelled to use alternative services at no extra cost. Gatwick Express added early morning and overnight services during the summer holiday peak, with the number of services set to double in December. Cambridge South station recorded more than 110,100 journeys in its first month.

A £3.6 million investment in cleaner trains has so far seen 111 Thameslink Class 700 trains deep cleaned, 34 polished and 251 of 455 toilets refreshed, and 110 Travel Safe Officers are now working across the network. Model Stations have launched at Elstree & Borehamwood and Gipsy Hill. GTR is also leading the £1.4 billion Government-funded East Coast Digital Programme, with Great Northern operating the first passenger services on the East Coast Main Line using digital in-cab signalling. John Whitehurst, Chief Executive Officer at GTR, said some customers would feel there was still a long way to go and were right to expect more, but that GTR was making practical changes customers could see and feel. Rail Minister Lord Hendy said the first 100 days showed what public ownership could deliver, and that GTR’s progress was a sign of what was to come as Great British Railways was built. DFTO-owned operators now deliver eight in ten of the passenger rail journeys that Great British Railways will ultimately be responsible for.

First of Ten New Derby-built Elizabeth Line Trains Enters Passenger Service The first of ten new Class 345 Aventra trains for the Elizabeth line has entered passenger service in London, following an extensive testing period on the main line railway by Alstom, Transport for London (TfL) and operator GTS Rail Operations. Unit 345071 was accepted by the customer on 25 August and began carrying passengers on 28 August. The Government-funded trains will help meet growing passenger demand on the line, including at High Speed Two’s (HS2) Old Oak Common station when it opens. They are being built at Alstom’s Litchurch Lane Works in Derby, with a supply chain of almost 40 UK companies employing more than 1,000 people. Each nine-carriage train contains five miles of welding, 50 miles of cabling and more than 47,700 screws and 31,700 bolts. Nimesh Tailor, Alstom’s Project Director for the Elizabeth line, said the milestone was a special moment for the Derby team and for everyone across the country involved in building the trains. He said the team would bring the same commitment to delivering the remaining nine units, and that the project demonstrated Derby’s ability to deliver complex, high-quality rolling stock for passengers in the UK and abroad. Litchurch Lane Works, opened by the Midland Railway in 1876, is Alstom’s largest facility worldwide and the only train factory in the UK able to design, engineer, build and test trains for both domestic and export markets. 8

NEWS

Chiltern Railways Transfers into Public Ownership Chiltern Railways services transferred into public ownership on 20 September, the sixth operator’s services to do so under the current Government. Chiltern connects London Marylebone with Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands, and carries almost 20 million passengers a year. A new timetable from December will add 25 weekday services, including a half-hourly service throughout the day on the Chiltern Main Line between London and Birmingham. This will provide almost 10,000 extra seats every weekday, nearly 5,000 on Saturdays and more than 3,000 on Sundays. Six more Chiltern Explorer trains will enter service with the December 2026 timetable, completing a fleet of 13 and offering improved accessibility, air conditioning and Wi-Fi. A £12 million refurbishment of the Class 168 fleet will continue, with upgraded Wi-Fi, power and USB charging at every seat and refreshed interiors by 2028. Station improvements will include refurbished toilets, painting, deep cleaning and graffiti removal, and 200 previously closed

car park spaces will reopen at Haddenham and Thame Parkway. New signage will be installed at five of Chiltern’s busiest stations, alongside upgraded customer information screens, help points and accessible ramps. From the transfer date, passengers whose train is cancelled can also use another operator’s service at no extra cost. The Government says public ownership also provides a fresh opportunity to deliver East West Rail. Rail Minister Lord Hendy said every transfer into public ownership was a chance to tackle the issues passengers cared about, such as more frequent, comfortable trains that ran on time. Tony Baxter, Interim Managing Director of Chiltern Railways, said customers would see more trains, more services and station improvements over the next 12 months, made possible by years of planning by Chiltern colleagues. Great Western Railway services will transfer on 13 December 2026, with the full public ownership programme due to be completed by the end of 2027.

New Help Points for 48 Welsh Stations Transport for Wales (TfW) is investing £1 million in new Help Points at 48 stations, giving passengers access to live travel support and real-time information. The Help Points connect callers directly to Customer Information Controllers based in Wales, most of whom speak Welsh. They can be used to check train times, request assistance or report an issue. The rollout will focus on unstaffed stations, stations with less frequent services, and areas where 4G and 5G signal is limited. Priority goes to stations that previously had BT payphones, including Tenby, Pwllheli, Llandovery and Holyhead. Five stations in north Wales will also have their existing Help Points replaced so that bilingual assistance is available across the network.

TfW manages 248 stations across Wales and the Borders, but fewer than half currently have Help Points. Teleri Evans, Customer Information Manager at TfW, who developed the Help Point Strategy, said the aim was for customers to feel safe, confident and connected on the network. She added that not knowing what is happening at a station during disruption is among the worst experiences for passengers. Adam Zak, Project Manager at TfW, said the organisation was working with Network Rail to confirm dates, with work expected to begin this financial year.

Lumo And Hull Trains Launch Social Mobility Report Open access operators Lumo and Hull Trains have launched their second Social Mobility Impact Report at a parliamentary reception hosted by Dr Scott Arthur MP. The report was produced with The Purpose Coalition and follows the operators’ first report in 2024. It sets out evidence that open access is growing the railway rather than simply redistributing passengers. FirstGroup analysis estimates that Lumo has helped

generate more than six million new rail journeys, and Hull Trains is carrying over 50 per cent more journeys in 2026 than in 2018/19. In this year’s Rail Customer Experience Survey, Lumo ranked first in the UK for value for money, while Hull Trains ranked first across the industry with 94 per cent overall satisfaction. The report also highlights the operators’ role as employers. By February 2026, 65 Lumo colleagues had completed an

apprenticeship, and Lumo’s new Stirling– London Euston service has created around 100 jobs at a new base in Preston. Stuart Jones, Managing Director of Lumo and Hull Trains, said the report showed the positive impact accessible, affordable and reliable rail could have on people’s lives. Professor the Rt Hon Justine Greening, Chair of The Purpose Coalition, said transport was a critical enabler of opportunity. 9

NEWS

RSSB Launches Free Carbon Management Tool for Rail Projects The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) has launched the Carbon Management Tool (CMT), a free, rail-specific platform to help organisations understand, manage and reduce whole-life carbon emissions from infrastructure and railway assets. Around half of the railway’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the materials used to build, renew and maintain infrastructure, but carbon is often considered too late in a project’s development, when the opportunities to reduce it have already been missed. The CMT is designed to help project teams assess the carbon impact of decisions earlier, compare options and identify lower-carbon approaches before designs and delivery plans are fixed.

Joshua Fisher, RSSB’s Chief Operating Officer, said carbon was too often measured after key decisions had been made. He said the tool, developed with the industry, gave project teams a practical way to understand the carbon implications of different choices at the point decisions were being taken, and throughout the lifecycle of rail assets. The tool is available now, and RSSB is running webinars and training for organisations adopting it. More information is available at rssb.co.uk.

Podcast Highlights Success of Tram Pedestrian Safety Campaign

Sarah Singh, Tram Director at Edinburgh Trams and Connor Hardy, Quality, Health, Safety and Environmental Manager for Nottingham Trams, join LRSSB Marketing and Communications Manager Carly Swift for the latest ‘Let’s Talk Light Rail’ podcast.

The latest episode of the Light Rail Safety and Standards Board (LRSSB) podcast, Let’s Talk Light Rail, looks at the impact of the national ‘Two Lines = STOP’ pedestrian safety campaign in Edinburgh and Nottingham. Sarah Singh, Tram Director at Edinburgh Trams, and Connor Hardy, Quality, Health, Safety and Environmental Manager for Nottingham Trams, discuss how the campaign has influenced pedestrian behaviour and reduced the number of reported incidents on their networks. In Nottingham, the effect has been particularly noticeable during major events, including the Winter Wonderland 10

celebrations in Old Market Square. In Edinburgh, the campaign has been particularly effective in reaching students and seasonal visitors. The episode, presented by Carly Swift, LRSSB Marketing and Communications Manager, was recorded on board a tram at Nottingham’s Wilkinson Street depot. It also covers research into the campaign’s effectiveness across the UK, which found that up to 70 per cent of people who had seen the ‘Two Lines = STOP’ graphics had changed their behaviour near a tramway. The discussion looks at the campaign’s future, the role of social media and plans to reach schools and community groups.

NEWS

Rail Training Courses Open for Autumn and 2027 The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) is running two remote training courses in October to support organisations using its new Carbon Management Tool, launched on 16 September. Carbon Management Fundamentals, on 14 October, covers the principles, terminology and reporting of carbon management and where emissions can be reduced. Whole Life Carbon Assessment, on 21 October, looks at assessing carbon impacts across an asset’s lifecycle and using that information to support project decisions. Both courses are led by Chris Risoli, RSSB’s Net Zero Specialist and lead carbon designer for the tool, and Noah Myers, Carbon Lead.

The Railway Industry Association (RIA) has opened bookings for its 2027 training programme. Its one-day courses are endorsed by the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) and cover areas including industry induction and work-winning skills. They include Introduction to the UK Railway Industry and Supply Chain, aimed at new starters, which covers how the railway is structured and governed, as well as safety, infrastructure and technology. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

IMAGE CREDIT: ALSTOM

£1 billion Contracts for Britain’s First Main Line Battery-electric Trains Alstom has signed contracts worth more than £1 billion with TransPennine Express (TPE) for the supply and long-term maintenance of 29 five-car battery-electric multiple units. The agreements comprise a rolling stock contract worth approximately £800 million and maintenance contracts worth around £200 million. The trains will support the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU) and the decarbonisation of rail travel across northern England. The order is the first UK deployment of Alstom’s Adessia Stream platform and will be Britain’s first main line battery-electric fleet. Manufacturing is expected to begin in 2028, with deliveries from 2032. Funded by Rock Rail, the trains will replace part of TPE’s existing Class 185 fleet on services connecting Liverpool, Manchester, York, Hull, Scarborough and Saltburn. Designed for long-distance regional travel, the 121-metre trains will operate at up to 110mph and provide around 300 seats each, including a First Class area with catering. As the first new-build trains to be operated by Great British Railways (GBR), they will include Wi-Fi, air conditioning, power and USB-C charging at every seat, enhanced luggage space, real-time passenger information, CCTV and dedicated cycle storage. Level boarding at every door is a defining feature of the fleet, and Alstom says it will allow unassisted boarding at 85 per cent of existing UK station platforms, reducing the need for investment in platform height changes. Each train will also have three wheelchair spaces, two accessible toilets, family areas and buggy storage. The trains’ batteries will provide emission-free operation on non-electrified sections of the route. Alstom will install charging infrastructure at Hull, Scarborough and Saltburn, allowing the fleet to recharge during normal operations. This will be the

TPE Adessia Stream at Hull.

first installation of its kind on the UK main line network, following a similar deployment by Alstom in Ireland. The trains will be designed, engineered, built and tested at Alstom’s Litchurch Lane Works in Derby, the home of the Adessia platform. The order will support more than 350 jobs in Derby and over 5,500 roles in Alstom’s UK supply chain, with at least £360 million to be spent with British suppliers. The maintenance contract will support more than 100 roles and runs for an initial eight years, with the option of a further eight-year extension. Alstom will also train around 40 apprentices and 40 T Level students over the contract. Rob Whyte, Managing Director UK at Alstom, described the agreement as a landmark moment for Britain’s railway, and said the fleet would showcase British engineering, innovation and advanced manufacturing. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the trains would bring faster, more reliable journeys to the

North and thousands of British jobs for the next generation. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the investment embodied how GBR would deliver better journeys while backing British business. Chris Jackson, Managing Director at TPE, called it a transformational investment in rail travel across the North, and Mark Swindell, Founder at Rock Rail, said the project would deliver a step change in passenger experience, journey times and environmental benefit. Adessia is the next evolution of Alstom’s Aventra platform and was developed for the UK through a three-year research programme and a £35 million investment. Alstom’s battery trains elsewhere include the Coradia Continental battery-electric train, which entered service with operator VMS in Germany in February 2026, and France’s first battery-powered train, which entered service for the Occitanie Region in July 2026.

NEWS

Transport Committee Presses Minister on Independence of New Passenger Watchdog Ruth Cadbury MP, Chair of the House of Commons Transport Committee, has urged the Government to reconsider its approach to appointing the chair of the new rail passenger watchdog, to ensure the body is seen as fully independent. In a letter to Rail Minister Lord Hendy, the Chair repeated the Committee’s call for the Government’s preferred candidate to chair the watchdog to face a pre-appointment hearing before the Committee. She said comparable bodies, including the Patient Safety Commissioner, the Housing Ombudsman and the Children’s Commissioner for England, were already subject to such scrutiny. She added that it was vital the watchdog was seen to be independent of both the Secretary of State and Great British Railways, and that a hearing would support public confidence in that independence.

She was responding to a letter from Lord Hendy on 20 July, in which he said the Government had decided against pre-appointment scrutiny. He said that while the Government agreed on the importance of safeguarding the watchdog’s independence, it did not consider a hearing would add sufficient value in this case. The Committee first recommended pre-appointment scrutiny for the post in its report on the Railways Bill, published in February. The Transport Secretary has said the watchdog will set standards, independently monitor passengers’ experience, investigate persistent issues and push for a more accessible railway.

Kier to Deliver Accessibility Upgrades at Six Greater Manchester stations Kier has been appointed by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) to design and build accessibility improvements at six railway stations: Flowery Field, Newton-forHyde, Levenshulme, Davenport, Woodsmoor and Bredbury. The appointment is subject to full business case and railway approvals. The upgrades will provide step-free access at each station and are funded by the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme and Greater Manchester’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS). Kier will evaluate options, develop outline and detailed designs, and complete the works at each station ready for handover. It will work with TfGM, Network Rail, Vextrix, Tony Gee and Partners and Northern. According to the Office of Rail and Road’s estimates of station usage for 2024/25, 472,012 passengers used Levenshulme station, 183,740 used Flowery Field and 139,956 travelled through Newton-forHyde, while Davenport saw around 291,000 passengers, Woodsmoor approximately 247,000 and Bredbury just over 172,000. Mandy Duncan, Managing Director for Rail and Aviation at Kier Infrastructure, said the works would make the stations more inclusive, particularly for people with reduced mobility and those travelling with luggage, bicycles or prams. Simon Elliott, Network Director Rail at TfGM, said accessibility improvements were key to building a public transport network that worked for everyone in Greater Manchester. Earlier this year, Kier delivered new stations at Willenhall and Darlaston in the West Midlands. 12

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INTERVIEW

Sharon Young MBE Director at WSP In June 2026, WSP was appointed to Transport for London’s Professional Services Framework across all six lots: project management, commercial, risk, planning, assurance and governance. The framework provides a long-term route for WSP to support TfL’s programme, project and commercial management priorities across the capital’s transport network. Sharon Young is a Director in WSP’s rail business and its Key Account Sponsor for TfL. She was awarded an MBE for services to rail and STEM.

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Sharon Young MBE, WSP’s Key Account Sponsor for Transport for London, about the firm’s appointment across all six lots of TfL’s Professional Services Framework, lessons from Bond Street, and why early-career professionals need more opportunities to take on real responsibility SSH: You spent most of your career on the client side at TfL, and now split your time between a TfL secondment and being WSP’s Key Account Sponsor for TfL. What does that look like day to day? SY: I’m a Director in the rail business at WSP, currently seconded back into TfL as Programme Engineering Manager on the Bakerloo line upgrade. Before that, I was a TfL employee, seconded into Crossrail for four years as engineering lead for Bond Street, and before that I worked on large infrastructure projects across the TfL network, including Paddington and Vauxhall. I treat the two roles as completely separate. In the secondment, I’m effectively working as part of TfL. In the WSP sponsor role, I support a team that handles the day-to-day account management and stakeholder engagement, and I’m there for leadership and guidance, drawing on my understanding of what TfL want, how they behave, and their constraints. SSH: Bond Street was arguably one of the hardest live-environment station builds London has seen. What’s the one thing from that project you’d carry forward? SY: We needed to fit in with a live system: other stations, the line running, various trial-running stages, all while we still needed to keep building. We actually brought some of the stations into operation to fit in with that system testing. What I picked up was how to keep delivery going in a live railway environment, and the safety that comes with that: proper 14

demarcation and escape routes, and the logistics of giving people the parts of the station they need while it’s testing, commissioning and live. Everybody has a different priority in that kind of environment, so it’s really a lesson in stakeholder engagement under pressure. That’s exactly what’s useful in this new role. You’re not just looking at a technical solution or the cheapest commercial solution in isolation; you’re looking at the whole system, the whole operating railway, and weighing everything up to enable more informed decisions. SSH: Bond Street was also one of the reasons you received an MBE. What was that like? SY: Very humbling, and quite a shock. It was for services to rail, Crossrail at the time, and STEM work I’ve been involved in. There was a huge, brilliant team at Bond Street, so to be recognised among that group was a real honour, and it still feels a little surreal. You also can’t talk about it with anyone, including family, until it’s published in the Gazette, so there’s a period where you’re sitting on quite a big secret.

TfL make more informed, longer-term decisions rather than just the here and now. SSH: How common is that kind of longterm view in the rail industry, in your experience? SY: The aspiration is there, but funding and political constraints limit how far it can go. TfL has now been given a multi-year capital settlement, which they haven’t had for a while, and that allows a longer-term view of investment, but it needs to be sustained rather than staged, because staging puts pressure on a long-term solution. That’s really the boom-and-bust problem: clients know what they want their longterm plans to be, it’s making that happen that’s constrained. A framework like this helps map out the long-term solution, and even without funding for the whole thing at once, you can still stage it as part of a whole-system approach rather than staging the technical, commercial and risk pieces separately. That gives TfL confidence on cost and schedule at the outset and lets us keep tracking and managing those areas afterwards.

SSH: WSP landed all six lots on this framework, which is a broad spread for one firm. What does it actually cover?

SSH: Long, multi-year programmes can be hard to sustain. How do you keep momentum and confidence going over that kind of timescale?

SY: Project management, commercial, risk, planning, assurance and governance. It lets us build on the technical support we already provide TfL and add a much more well-rounded package, looking at the whole system rather than pieces of it, which helps

SY: It’s about not burning people out. Frameworks help because there’s always something going on, which keeps people fresh, engaged and on their toes, and gives the client a more effective commercial way to keep bringing new things forward.

INTERVIEW

SSH: What do you think it was about WSP’s bid that was most attractive to TfL? SY: A solid existing relationship with TfL, global capability alongside our UK and Ireland set-up, and good evidence of operating strongly elsewhere in the rail industry, both technically and on the project and commercial management side. Bringing that together gives us the depth to address everything, with evidence we’ve done it before, and gives TfL the flexibility to take the whole package or dip into parts of it. SSH: You’ve been vocal about getting more women into rail and about mentoring. Does a framework this size give you more room to do that? SY: Absolutely. The more routes you have to support a client, the wider range of people and perspectives you’re able to bring in. Diversity, whether of gender, ethnicity or background, adds a different dimension that can only add value to clients. SSH: What does mentoring look like for you now, as someone with a long career that others are looking up to? SY: I love it, and I think it’s something you should be doing, giving back. I try to get people thinking about where they want to go rather than assuming they’ll follow the same road they’ve always been on, to get them excited and looking outside the box rather than getting stagnant. If you’re enjoying it, you’re going to do well, and honestly, giving people that bit of excitement is a nice break for me too. SSH: You mentioned WSP’s Women in Rail team is really taking off. Looking back over the ten-plus years Women in Rail has been active, what’s stood out most about its growth? SY: It’s now a recognised, day-to-day name, understood by male allies as well as women in the industry, not a small group fighting to be recognised any more. The annual awards event is huge and very well attended, and it was just as big again this year. SSH: Where do you think the skills gap is hitting hardest, based on what you’re seeing across TfL and WSP? SY: It comes down to whether opportunities are there for younger professionals to take on ownership, accountability and decisionmaking, on schemes complex enough to let them spread their wings. Because of the funding and political constraints already mentioned, those opportunities aren’t always as available as they were fifteen or twenty years ago. I got to where I am by being thrown in at the deep end, and by there being a lot of big work at TfL when I needed it. Access to those opportunities is probably what’s restricting the skills coming through now.

SSH: Do you think today’s early-career professionals are hesitant to jump in the deep end, or is it more about opportunities not being there? SY: From what I see, no, they’re not hesitant, they’re keen and open to challenges. It’s more about finding them a varied range of opportunities. Degree apprenticeships in particular are much more prominent now than a straight academic route through university, and I think that’s helping close the practical and hands-on gaps. I don’t think the picture is as bad as some make out; there may have been a lapse, but it should start coming through again. WSP has a large number of apprentices and graduates coming through, and we see them as an important part of the company’s future. SSH: Does guaranteed, multi-year work through a framework like this help bring more people in? SY: The backbone of a successful framework is depth of skills, capability and longevity, and that’s where early-career professionals come in, learning stakeholder engagement and collaboration as part of their development. SSH: Are there any upcoming projects, concrete or otherwise, that you’re excited about? SY: My focus is spread across three things at the moment: sponsoring WSP’s internal Women in Rail team, which we’re trying to build out more nationally; my TfL sponsorship role for the account; and the Bakerloo line upgrade, which is progressing nicely with a lot of work going on around it. SSH: It sounds like managing different stakeholders has been a key thread through your career? SY: The biggest challenge is listening and really understanding what people need, because sometimes what they want isn’t what they need. Once you know what everyone needs, you work out how to join those needs together, and where you can’t, you have to be open and honest about the misalignment. It comes down to being authentic, listening, not assuming you know what someone wants, and being willing to have difficult conversations when they’re needed. SSH: Is that a good model for other clients, such as Great British Railways? SY: All clients can learn from each other, and lessons learned is a huge part of what the industry needs to keep doing. GBR is a very different model to TfL, but the concept of stakeholder engagement and collaboration is something everyone can learn from.

NE WS IN BRIE F DRS INSTALLS ETCS DRIVER TRAINING SIMULATORS Direct Rail Services (DRS), the rail division of Nuclear Transport Solutions, has installed new driver training simulators at its Carlisle office to prepare drivers for the rollout of the European Train Control System (ETCS). The facility includes a virtual cab simulator and several desktop simulators, allowing drivers to practise ETCS operations and a range of scenarios without affecting live services. The simulators were designed and delivered by CORYS and funded by Network Rail as part of the East Coast Digital Programme.

GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY TENDERS NEXT REUNIFICATION PHASE The Great Central Railway (GCR) has begun a tender for the Factory Flyover phase of its Reunification project, which will build 60 metres of new railway in Loughborough at a cost of around £3.5 million. The work includes an elevated concrete viaduct and a new bridge across Railway Terrace Road. A contractor is expected to be appointed before Christmas, with work starting in early 2027. Reunification will restore 500 metres of track, reconnecting the heritage line’s Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire sections to create an 18-mile railway.

EMR COMPLETES 25 TRAIN REFURBISHMENTS East Midlands Railway (EMR) has completed the refurbishment of 25 trains as part of a £60 million investment in its Regional and EMR Connect fleets. The total includes 10 Class 158s, 12 Class 170s and the first three Class 360s, which run EMR Connect services between Corby and London St Pancras International and Luton Airport Express services. The Class 360s have redesigned interiors with new 2+2 seating, upgraded luggage space, and power and USB charging. Further units are continuing through the programme.

INTERVIEW

Rémi Habfast Managing Director of PAXONE at Wiremind Rémi Habfast is Managing Director of PAXONE at Wiremind. He began his career in strategy consulting before joining SNCF, where he worked in revenue management and went on to hold a range of operational and commercial roles, including leading the revamp of TGV Nord services. He joined Wiremind in 2019 to work on revenue management software and has since led the development of PAXONE, the company’s distribution and inventory platform. 16

INTERVIEW

‘Optimise each element together, and you end up with a solution that maximises optimisation across the full value chain.’

SSH: You went from strategy consulting to SNCF, where you led the TGV Nord revamp, before joining Wiremind in 2019. What from that operational experience at SNCF most directly shaped how you approached building PAXONE, Wiremind’s all-in-one AI-powered distribution and inventory platform? RH: When I started at SNCF, I worked first in revenue management, using software inherited from the airlines and built in the 1980s and 90s. Even a small improvement in revenue management can have a huge impact on an operator’s margin, but the tools we had didn’t allow for that. This was around 2012–13, the same period the idea of Wiremind began taking shape with Colin Girault-Matz and Charles Pierre. They were in the process of building an AI-powered, advanced revenue management solution for passenger operators that would offer them robust and efficient workflows. This solution became today’s CAYZN, Wiremind’s flagship product to date. I spent a few more years at SNCF, across operational and commercial roles, and saw the same pattern everywhere. The tools for building schedules, managing disruptions, and so much else hadn’t been rethought in a long time. Each department was also optimising its own area in isolation. Pricing, maintenance, and scheduling were being handled individually. But everything ultimately comes down to the same offer: running trains with the right price, schedule, and capacity.

Optimise each element separately, and you leave value on the table. Optimise each element together, and you end up with a solution that maximises optimisation across the full value chain. The conviction that modern software and AI could transform passenger rail is why I joined Wiremind to initially work on revenue management software. A few years later we built PAXONE, our own inventory management system, which became the backbone for everything we’ve built since, covering every aspect of the transport offer with automation and AI. SSH: PAXONE supports continuous pricing, ancillary optimisation and flexible departure-time fares, among other strategies. Which approaches are delivering the most value for operators at the moment? RH: There’s no single answer, because many different features each create value, often just a few percentage points individually, but added together they can have a huge impact on revenue or load factor, and it depends a lot on the operator’s profile. Some operators can make great use of ancillaries, Wi-Fi, power plugs, luggage space, sold alongside the ticket; others don’t have that inventory to sell. It’s similar with continuous pricing–pushing price to the system dynamically at any time, rather than sticking to a fixed set of price points. Although it’s less established for rail than for airlines, rail distribution is still catching up to the execution of continuous pricing. If you’re facing strong competition, adjusting price at a fine level matters; if you’re not, price points may be perfectly adequate. Right now, the biggest gains can come from pairing continuous pricing with an approach that balances pricing at the leg level against pricing at the full origindestination level, rather than relying on just one, since it lets operators fine-tune prices against competitors far more precisely than fixed price points allow. The other big lever is the synergy between our Revenue Management System, CAYZN, and PAXONE: letting revenue management teams steer ancillaries and post-booking offers directly from CAYZN into PAXONE, rather than managing them separately, which is where a lot of ancillary revenue gets left on the table today. There is also value in the data flowing between the two systems that sharpens pricing and inventory decisions on both sides rather

than each system working off its own view. What’s true across the board is that the impact usually shows up in revenue rather than costs, so it translates directly into margin. SSH: Predictive AI is already mature and in daily use across the industry, while generative AI is still more of a frontier. Where do you see GenAI creating the most value for you at Wiremind? RH: I think generative AI will transform three things for us. The first is how passengers buy tickets. Large language models are already very good at helping people plan travel and giving personalised advice; what hasn’t happened yet is letting people book through that same interaction, though it’s something we’ve already built into PAXONE through our own MCP [Model Context Protocol] server. I don’t think people will keep booking by choosing from three or four options on an OTA. Instead, you’ll write a prompt: for a return trip, lunch at a restaurant, back by six, a Metro connection to catch; and it will build a search matching your precise situation using tools like Claude, ChatGPT, or Mistral, just from text. Operators need new technology, like MCPs, to be ready for that. The second is how operators use B2B systems. PAXONE is a B2B system: you use it to control product, price, schedule, sales openings, and discounts. Until recently, that meant clicking through a user interface. Now we’re seeing a shift towards steering software through chatbots and prompts, which is far more efficient than clicking through screens. Instead of navigating several menus to open extra allocation on a specific service, an RM user can simply type something like ‘open 50 more seats on the 8am Paris-Lyon for the next two weeks’ and our Revenue Management System, CAYZN, steers PAXONE directly. Both PAXONE and CAYZN are built to be fully steerable that way. The third is how we develop software itself. Two years ago, a new feature might take three months to build. Today the same feature can be done in two days. The design and testing phases still take roughly as long as before, but the coding time has dropped so dramatically that the speed at which we can advance our product roadmap is far faster than even a year or two ago. This also allows us to integrate our customers’ needs way faster into our systems. 17

INTERVIEW

SSH: For the traveller, where does that show up first: booking, disruption, or something else? RH: Searching and booking will be transformed by generative AI first. What happens after booking, I’m less sure about, because most of that interaction is from the operator to the passenger, and I think it will stay a fairly standard channel, a text message or email before departure. But what’s inside it will change completely: instead of a generic confirmation, it can be fully customised upgrade offers, connection advice, whether you’re travelling with children or on a return trip, anything in the context of your booking. Generative AI is very good at handling data that differs for every customer and choosing between a set of predefined actions; the boundaries of what it can say are still defined by the operator, but the range of options within that can be very wide. SSH: Could you give an example of how generative AI might support an inventory or revenue analyst’s day-to-day decisions? RH: Disruption management is a good example. It’s one of the biggest challenges for an operator: it happens fast, there are many customers, and each is in a different situation, and it’s where the gap in customer experience is starkest between an operator that handles it well and one that doesn’t. You don’t tell your friends when a journey goes smoothly, but you do when there’s a delay, and if the company handled it well with a voucher, a coffee, or an apology email shortly after the incident arrives then you’ll tell your friends about that too. Today, when a disruption hits, a customer service agent has to go through each affected booking case by case, which doesn’t scale when hundreds of passengers are affected by the same delay. With generative AI, instead of working through that list one booking at a time, the customer service agent gets a set of recommendations already matched to each passenger’s situation–rebook this

‘If several operators share the same platform, an innovation built for one operator’s needs can end up benefiting everyone using it, so the speed at which innovation reaches the whole ecosystem is much faster.’ 18

one, refund that one, offer a voucher there– and reviews and approves them rather than building the logic from scratch for every case. A family with a connection to make needs a different recommendation–rebooking, refunding, and/or changing tickets–than a business traveller; and those decisions can be made far more effectively when they account for the specific context of each customer and each disruption. SSH: Looking further ahead, what’s your own hope for what AI could make possible in passenger transport? RH: One of the biggest challenges today is travelling seamlessly across multiple operators and countries. Connecting trains between different operators is usually a nightmare: tickets on different websites, and if you miss a connection, you’re largely on your own, so a lot of people simply fly or drive instead. What AI could do well is take the offers from different operators and combine them in new ways that traditional OTAs are not able to. It would also be personalised: a family might not want a fifteen-hour trip with two changes, while a business traveller with Wi-Fi on board might be fine with it. Achieving this ease and personalisation is the big goal, and it needs standardisation, passenger adoption, and operators opening their APIs via MCPs. If we get there, it could be a big driver in shifting people from cars and planes back to rail. Airlines solved this long ago with the GDS [Global Distribution System], which lets them publish all their scheduling and inventory data on one platform; when you search for flights through Expedia or Skyscanner, you’re connecting to a GDS that builds the itinerary for you. Rail has never had that: each country has its own national operator, and passengers mostly stay within their own country, so there’s been no central system for everyone’s data. That’s starting to change in the UK, and in France for intercity trains, but it’s still limited, and outside those cases, connecting journeys still means requesting schedule, price, and inventory data separately from each operator. SSH: How important is it that people can understand how an AI reaches its decisions when it’s used in commercial decision-making? RH: Less than it used to be. It was a bigger issue for predictive AI a few years ago, when the pricing algorithms were newer, but those models are now mature and welltrusted. Generative AI is arguably even less of a concern: one of its strengths is that it can explain its own reasoning, so you can usually understand and challenge its output if something doesn’t look right. That said, I understand why the broader concern hasn’t gone away; you only have to open a newspaper to see how much

‘Two years ago, a new feature might take three months to build. Today the same feature can be done in two days.’ attention AI oversight is getting right now. But I’d separate that from explainability specifically. The real question isn’t whether the model can explain itself; it’s who stays in control. That’s also where the regulation is heading: the EU AI Act treats AI used in safety-critical transport systems as highrisk and requires real human oversight and traceability, not just an ‘undo’ button. For us, that means an AI agent can suggest, but a person always reviews and validates before anything goes live. That distinction between control and explainability is what actually matters here, and this is already built into our solutions. SSH: Great British Railways is meant to create a more standardised railway while also encouraging innovation. How can technology help achieve both? RH: I don’t think they’re contradictory. Standardisation under GBR will mean common platforms, in some cases the same software, but using a single technology doesn’t mean you innovate less. There’s also a product angle: if several operators share the same platform, an innovation built for one operator’s need can end up benefiting everyone using it, so the speed at which innovation reaches the whole ecosystem is much faster. That’s actually our vision: supporting the entire industry with one suite of Passenger Solutions that drives accelerated advancement. It’s what we’ve already started doing across Europe, with customers from France to Finland. SSH: CAYZN recently launched its AI Agent Suite for revenue management. Do you see a role for that kind of technology as GBR centralises? RH: It’s genuinely game-changing, especially around business intelligence and reporting. Every operator has its own commercial offering and definitions, so pulling a report across, say, twenty operators can be very difficult. Asking ‘What’s the average price of a semi-flexible product over the last few months?’ sounds simple, but every operator defines ‘semi-flexible’ differently. With our AI Agent Suite, you write a single prompt, and it performs that analysis automatically. It also helps operators manage the tool itself better over time with clearer explainability behind decisions, reporting that adapts to the reader, and business rules

INTERVIEW

that are properly documented and structured rather than a tangle only one person understands. It’s also directly relevant to GBR’s fares reform. Once the new, simplified fare structure and pay-as-you-go ticketing come in, operators will need to re-tune their pricing strategies quickly, and that’s exactly where AI helps: automatically flagging shifts in booking behaviour once the grid changes, running A/B tests on new rules, or simulating outcomes before committing to a strategy, rather than waiting months to see what worked. Centralisation also means training a lot of people across different TOCs, and AI helps there too. The same underlying knowledge can be delivered differently depending on who’s asking, taking into consideration how each person actually works day to day. However, this is really just one entry point into a much broader set of capabilities. The Suite goes well beyond reporting and pricing response. It’s built to cover the whole revenue management workflow. For example: writing and explaining Business Rules in plain language, explaining why the Optimizer made a given move and recommending the next pricing action, and then turning all of that into reporting a director can easily use

and understand. In a market where multiple operators share the same infrastructure, that scope is what makes it powerful. SSH: Where do you see the potential flashpoints as UK rail culture has to shift towards accepting AI, especially as operators move from private to public control? RH: There’s a strong aversion to change across the industry generally, and rail is one of the slower sectors to adapt, which is exactly why it’s encouraging to see GBR get ahead of it with its own AI Action Plan. It recognises early that AI won’t simply happen in the rail industry on its own and that real change needs deliberate leadership. The move to public control actually helps here. For the first time, one organisation is able to set a common direction instead of every operator experimenting on its own. The flashpoint is more about pace. A public body naturally tends to be cautious, and hence, takes time to evaluate and approve a new tool. However, AI moves things at such a fast pace that what gets rolled out as ‘new’ can already be a generation behind. Keeping up with that pace is no longer just a technical question; it’s becoming

a competitive one. National operators won’t lose their dominant position within a few years; they’re still well established, but it opens the door for more innovative entrants, and customers will notice the difference. There’s already more than one operator running high-speed services between Paris and Lyon, and if one adopts AI and the other doesn’t, I think it would quickly show up in market share.

‘An AI agent can suggest, but a person always reviews and validates before anything goes live.’

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LAYING DOWN THE LAW by Martin Fleetwood

Getting to know the UK’s updated Right to Work Regime

Martin Fleetwood is a Consultant at Addleshaw Goddard’s Transport practice. The Rail Team has over 30 lawyers who advise clients in both the private and public sectors across a wide range of legal areas. As well as contractual issues, the team advises on operational matters, franchises, concessions, finance, regulatory, property, employment, environmental and procurement issues.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given.

A person being employed to work in the UK by a business needs to have a relevant right to work in the UK

‘Investment in compliance technology may be warranted, and internal training will need to be updated to reflect the new categories and obligations.’

ll prospective employees must undergo right to work checks prescribed by the Home Office by their potential employer before employment commences (Right to Work Regime). In most cases this is relatively straightforward, however, not all potential workers have such rights. If Home Office inspectors find evidence of illegal working, they can impose civil penalties of up to £60,000 per worker on the relevant employer. There is also a potential criminal liability where employers have reasonable cause to believe illegal working is being carried out. This can include an unlimited fine and/or up to five years’ imprisonment for individuals within the business. For employers holding a sponsor licence, non-compliance could trigger an audit of the licence or cause the Home Office to scrutinise applications from that employer more closely. From 1 October 2026 a number of changes are being introduced through 20

section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Section 48) to further tighten the existing regime and to extend the liability of businesses for having illegal workers in their supply chain. For the rail sector it is likely that the new responsibility for the status of workers in their supply chain will be the most significant effect of these changes and becomes a reason for employers to consider whether a new liability is occurring which needs to be managed.

Which workers are captured by these changes?

Section 48 introduces three new categories of working individuals who are brought within the scope of the duty to check that the employee has a right to work. These are: • Workers’ Contract – broadly capturing individuals working under a contract for services or for the provision of labour, extending beyond the traditional employment contract, such as directly engaged individual contractors and consultants. • Individual Sub-Contractor – an individual engaged by a contractor rather than directly by the end-user business, typically as part of a supply chain arrangement. • Online Matching Service – individuals engaged through digital platforms or marketplace-style services, covering gig economy and platform-based arrangements e.g. taxi and food delivery services.

Individuals who are genuinely selfemployed, running their own independent business and contracting directly with clients and customers remain outside the extended scope of the Right to Work Regime.

The use of extended liability

Extended liability is a new concept introduced under the updated Right to Work Regime. The Home Office can pass the civil penalty liability further up the chain of contracts, rather than just looking to the direct employer. The focus of the extended liability regime is on parties in the middle of the chain of contracts, rather than the ‘end users’ (i.e. the ultimate clients in a chain). This extended liability broadly applies in the following scenarios: • Subcontracting – where a person is under a contract to provide work or services to a third-party and enters into a contract with another employer providing workers to fulfil that contract. • Online matching – where an online matching service provides details of a service provider to clients or customers, and the service provider enters into a contract with a client or customer (e.g. gig economy workers). • Substitution – where an employer employs an individual to provide work or services, and the contractual arrangements allow the individual to substitute their work or services to another individual.

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Employers can provide a level of protection against such liability through establishing a statutory excuse against right to work checks extending liability by complying with the prescribed requirements relevant to the contractual arrangements before the work commences and being able to provide evidence of that compliance if requested. These requirements are set out in the revised Home Office guidance which has recently been published. Businesses should address the following points in the commercial terms that they have with their relevant third-party providers: • Contractual terms and conditions – a written statement must be in place before the work or service commenced, with a requirement for the employer or service provider to carry out right to work checks among other requirements. • Substitution controls – where a person supplying work or services has the right to substitute another worker to provide that work or service, the prescribed right to work checks must be carried out on any substitutes, and substitutes must not carry out any work before the right to work has been verified. Businesses must ensure that for the duration of the employment, that the worker and their substitute are the same individuals whose right to work has been checked. • Identity verification – proportionate systems and processes should be in place to ensure that the individual carrying out the work or services is the same individual on whom a right to work check has been carried out.

Practical steps for businesses

In order to manage the risks raised by the updated Right to Work Regime, businesses should take the following actions.

Audit your own workforce

Consider whether your workforce has workers or self-employed contractors who might be considered to be workers that would require a right to work check. Review and map all the ways in which work is engaged within your business and how right to work checks are carried out across your business in light of the proposed changes, identifying risk hotspots and opportunities to improve. Is a right of substitution allowed for any worker? Any substitute must be subject to right to work checks before they begin performing services. Businesses should not depend on the original worker to determine a substitute’s right to work. Employers must also have proportionate identity verification processes to confirm that the individual actually doing the work is the same person whose right to work has been verified. Examples include identity cards or workplace access passes, cross-checks against training records, and periodic reverification of identity.

Once you have a clear view of who falls within scope, you can assess risk more accurately, prioritise remedial action and design compliance processes that are proportionate to those risks.

Review contracts with labour suppliers and agencies

Review any services agreements, supply or outsourcing contracts. Although the regime change is not backwards looking and would only apply to new arrangements from 1 October 2026, overarching or master service agreements may need to be amended to ensure that they contain the relevant protection for compliance going forwards. Home Office draft guidance indicates that specific clauses should be included in supply chain agreements to address right to work compliance obligations and information-sharing requirements. Where a person supplies work or services via another employer or an online matching service, there must be a written statement in place before work starts. It must require prescribed right to work checks on individuals, restrict further subcontracting without prior written consent and replicate equivalent obligations on right to work checks on any permitted subcontracting arrangement, permit audits, and allow enforcement (including suspension/ termination) where illegal working is found and no statutory excuse exists. These requirements can apply across multiple tiers in a contractual chain, with liability for illegal working assessed on a case by case basis depending on how arrangements operate in practice. Existing contracts and arrangements (including the existence and parameters of any warranties and indemnities in place) should be reviewed as soon as possible. It should be noted that warranties cannot provide protection from criminal penalties that may be imposed on the business.

Scale your checking processes

Assess whether your current right to work checking infrastructure (including any use of Identity Service Providers (IDSPs) for digital checks) can handle the volume and variety of checks that will be required from October. Investment in compliance technology may be warranted, and internal training will need to be updated to reflect the new categories and obligations.

Be mindful of stricter Home Office compliance

In the wider employment context, the Home Office is clamping down on compliance and the general mood in government is to be tough on immigration. It is important for businesses to consider the Right to Work Regime as part of their general compliance obligations, particularly if that business has a sponsor licence. The consequences of noncompliance are becoming very significant, even if you are not the direct employer of that worker.

NE WS IN BRIE F BRITONS WANT MORE CHOICE ON CROSS-CHANNEL RAIL, SAYS TRAINLINE More than half of Britons (53 per cent) want greater choice when travelling by train to continental Europe, according to a Trainline report. The report, Competition Delivers, draws on YouGov research and Trainline’s experience in Spain, Italy and France, where competition has reduced high-speed fares. In Italy, fares have fallen 40 per cent over 14 years. The findings come as new operators seek access to HS1 and the Channel Tunnel. Three quarters of Britons say lower fares would make them more likely to take the train to Europe.

DB ESG JOINS NETWORK RAIL ETCS SURVEY FRAMEWORK DB ESG has been appointed to a Network Rail framework to provide independent European Train Control System (ETCS) vehicle survey reports, which will support Network Rail’s ETCS supply and installation tendering. As the European Rail Traffic Management System is introduced across parts of the network, rolling stock must be surveyed to inform the design and installation of ETCS equipment. DB ESG has already surveyed more than 340 locomotives for ETCS fitment. Its survey team will combine two forms of 3D scanning with manual inspections by systems engineers to create a ‘reality capture’ model of each vehicle.

COLAS RAIL UK ROLLS OUT ENGINE CARBON CLEANING ACROSS TAMPER FLEET Colas Rail UK is rolling out Engine Carbon Clean’s hydrogen-based engine cleaning across its fleet of 31 tampers, after trials on two machines at its Rugby depot delivered fuel and emissions savings of more than 13 per cent. The technology uses oxyhydrogen gas to remove carbon build-up inside engines, improving combustion. Colas forecasts savings of more than 550 tonnes of CO2e a year across the fleet, and is the first company to use Engine Carbon Clean’s subscription model, carrying out the cleans itself. Colas Freight has also engaged Engine Carbon Clean for trials, starting with two Class 37 locomotives.

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Russell Brown is Regulatory Projects Manager at the Fundraising Regulator.

Safer Giving at Stations Russell Brown, Regulatory Projects Manager at the Fundraising Regulator, on how to keep railway stations trusted gateways for charitable giving

ur railway network is one of the few places in modern Britain where people from all walks of life truly mix. As hubs of travel, our stations are a key component of the public sphere. They are places where communities meet, local organisations can be seen, and the public encounters causes beyond their everyday lives. Since the charity collection dogs of the Victorian era that roamed stations with collection boxes strapped to their backs, the railway has served as a conduit for charitable giving at stations of all sizes and localities for nearly the entire history of passenger rail. At a time when charities are facing growing demand for their services, stations remain an important place for good causes to meet the public, grow awareness, and raise much-needed funds. But this long-standing role also brings responsibility. Passengers trust railway stations and the organisations that operate them. It follows that they may assume any fundraiser allowed to collect there has been properly checked and approved. This is why the Fundraising Regulator, which regulates charitable fundraising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has produced guidance for transport network organisations. It is there to help operators manage charitable cash collections safely and securely for donors, fundraisers, station operators and staff, and create conditions so legitimate charities can raise money with public confidence.

Trust is part of the infrastructure

Stations can act as a legitimising force for any appeal taking place on their premises. The public trusts the space and may therefore trust the activities being allowed to go on within it. Permission to collect at a 22

station can, in practice, look and feel like an endorsement. It is therefore an important responsibility of operators to oversee fundraising activity and make sure that public assumption is well founded. This is not simply about stopping fraud or dealing with poor behaviour. It is about protecting the confidence on which charitable giving depends. People should be able to donate knowing that the organisation is genuine, that they will not be placed under pressure and that the money will reach the intended good cause. When that confidence is damaged, the effect can go well beyond one collection. A bad experience may make someone less willing to support another charity in future. Safer giving is not about making fundraising more difficult: it helps the public recognise good fundraising and give with confidence. We have seen illegitimate or unauthorised organisations try to benefit from the trust associated with busy public spaces and breach the code. Transport hubs are attractive not only because of their high footfall, but also because the surroundings can give an activity a credibility it has not necessarily earned. An individual station may see only one part of this activity. Across an operator’s network, however, a pattern can become clear. Good records and the sharing of concerns can help prevent questionable fundraising simply moving from one station or operator to another.

Good oversight need not be complicated

The primary responsibility for following the Code of Fundraising Practice, which sets the standards for charitable fundraising across the UK, rests with the fundraising organisation. Its top-line expectation is straightforward: fundraising must be legal, open, honest and respectful.

Station operators are not expected to become fundraising regulators themselves. They are, however, an essential part of the fundraising chain because they decide who is allowed to collect on their premises. Our new guidance advises that a reasonable level of due diligence should be carried out when assessing an application from a new organisation. Operators should know who is collecting, who they are collecting for and whether those details can be verified. They can also check whether an organisation has publicly committed to good fundraising practice through the Fundraising Regulator’s Directory and/or the Charity Commission’s register. No single check will remove every risk, but a few basic steps can make it much less likely that an unauthorised or misleading collection takes place. A robust booking system also helps. It should clearly show when fundraisers have permission to be on site, divide available time fairly between organisations and give station operators and staff the information they need if someone arrives unannounced or expectations are not met. If a fundraiser arrives unannounced, or their details do not match the booking, the collection should not go ahead until the position has been clarified. Operators should also have a named contact for each collection and a clear route for escalating concerns. It is equally important to set out clearly, and in writing, what is expected of fundraisers while they are on the premises. They should not place undue pressure on passengers, make them uncomfortable or behave abusively. They should follow station rules, avoid obstructing passenger flows and act on instructions from station operators and staff. In addition, collection containers should be sealed and should not be left unattended in an unsecured place. Fundraising materials should identify the charity, agency or community interest company involved and include the relevant registration details. There should also be a clear process for making sure the money collected reaches its intended good cause. Arrangements will differ between operators, but they should be explained at the booking stage and followed at the end of the collection.

A consistent approach across the railway

A major terminus like Manchester Piccadilly or Bristol Temple Meads will have different arrangements from a smaller local station, and there is no single approach that will suit every part of the network. The underlying principles should, however, be consistent: clear responsibilities, reliable records, agreed standards and somewhere to take a concern. The rail sector is already used to managing complicated environments, and applying the same approach to charitable collections can support genuine fundraisers without placing an unreasonable burden on operators or staff.

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Protecting a proud tradition

‘Stations have a distinctive ability to bring the public and good causes together.’ There is also an opportunity for the sector to take a more joined-up approach. Legitimate charities should encounter clear and reasonable standards wherever they collect, while suspicious activity should not be able to move between stations or operators without concerns being shared. This is particularly relevant where organisations collect immediately outside stations. They may technically be standing on public land, but they can still benefit from the station’s footfall and from the impression that their activity has been approved. Where operators are concerned, they should contact the relevant local authority and share information through the appropriate channels.

The railway holds an important and proud place in British history, and our legacy of charitable giving is closely interwoven with public spaces such as railway stations. Operators are responsible for more than the fabric of station buildings and the train services passing through them. Stations are also common spaces within our social fabric, with a distinctive ability to bring the public and good causes together. Well-managed collections can also form part of the wider social value the railway provides to the communities it serves. The answer to poor fundraising is not to close stations to charitable activity. It is to make responsible fundraising welcome, protect donors and make legitimate charities easier for the public to recognise. By applying consistent checks, supporting station operators and staff, and sharing concerns across the network, railway operators can help set a high standard for safer giving. In doing so, they can protect public confidence and help charities continue the work on which so many people and communities depend. Protecting this tradition is not only about preventing bad fundraising. It is about giving good fundraising and public generosity the space to thrive.

NE WS IN BRIE F CROSSCOUNTRY JOINS CROSSOPERATOR TICKET ACCEPTANCE From 20 September, CrossCountry customers whose train is cancelled at short notice can travel at no extra cost on another participating operator’s service departing within two hours before or after their original train, using a direct or reasonable alternative route. Customers only need to show their original ticket. Seventeen operators now take part in the scheme, including Avanti West Coast, LNER, Great Western Railway and Northern. Transport Focus said the change was one it had long called for.

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Learning from Stourbridge The Government’s Mass Transit Taskforce faces a practical challenge: how can Britain deliver better public transport faster, more efficiently and at lower cost?

s it examines established tram and metro systems alongside emerging technologies such as Very Light Rail, Pre Metro believes its existing operation deserves closer attention. For more than seventeen years, the Stourbridge Shuttle has connected Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town, generating everyday experience of operating Very Light Rail. Its relevance to the Taskforce lies in both the service it provides and the lessons it offers about maintaining vehicles, managing infrastructure and meeting passenger needs. The Stourbridge Shuttle carries thousands of passengers each week, and its operating costs are up to 50 per cent lower than those of a conventional heavy rail service. That makes it a useful case for examining how different approaches to railway operation can support more affordable transport provision. Those lessons learnt also underpin the Dudley Dasher proposal, a connection between Stourbridge and Brierley Hill. For Pre Metro, the relationship between the two illustrates a wider policy question: how can experience gained from an established operation help suitable new schemes progress from proposal to delivery?

Evidence from everyday operation

Almost two decades of evidence at Stourbridge extends beyond cost and figures. Years of service have produced operational knowledge covering passenger demand, reliability, maintenance, fleet management, staffing and customer experience. Maintaining a ten-minute round-trip frequency also provides practical insight into the demands of frequent operation and the resources required to sustain it. Repeated maintenance cycles reveal requirements that may be difficult to establish through modelling alone. Daily operation has built an understanding of depot arrangements, vehicle availability and the relationship between maintenance planning and service delivery. The Shuttle also offers experience of introducing innovative lightweight technology into service within the national rail network. For a Taskforce examining operational, planning, funding and delivery barriers, this is a relevant body of knowledge. It provides a starting point for identifying what has been demonstrated, which lessons could 24

transfer to other locations, former Restoring Your Railway scheme routes or otherwise; and where further research or development remains necessary. Each proposed corridor will have its own demand, infrastructure and operating requirements. Stourbridge’s experience can help promoters test assumptions and identify risks, but the suitability of a new scheme must still be established on its own merits. Carefully applying operational evidence is central to making credible investment decisions.

Giving practical solutions a route forward

Pre Metro argues that the Taskforce’s recommendations should connect this evidence with the processes through which transport projects are selected, assessed and approved. Several changes could help local authorities give affordable solutions proper consideration and develop them with greater confidence. First, Very Light Rail should be considered alongside conventional tramways, light rail and metro systems from the outset. The starting point should be the needs of the community and corridor, with capacity, frequency, accessibility, integration and whole-life cost guiding the choice of technology. Early consideration matters. Including lower-cost options when rail reopening, regeneration and urban transport projects are first developed allows meaningful comparisons while decisions remain open.

It also gives authorities time to understand the opportunities of each approach before committing substantial resources to a preferred ‘traditional’ scheme. Second, development and approval requirements should reflect a project’s scale and complexity. Pre Metro argues that a Very Light Rail scheme of around £30 million, like the Dudley Dasher, should have a simpler pathway to progressing to development than a programme exceeding £1 billion, while retaining the scrutiny needed to establish safety, value for money and deliverability. Clear evidence requirements and decision points could help promoters understand what is needed at each stage. A proportionate process would still address the risks of the individual project, while reducing avoidable administrative burdens that can consume limited local authority resources and slow progress. Finally, appraisal should fully assess the benefits of better local connectivity. Access to employment, education, healthcare and town centres can be central to schemes serving smaller towns and suburban communities. Regeneration and environmental outcomes also need careful consideration when judging the case for investment. Starting small with the expectation of patronage growth is essential. Planning for expansion from the outset would enable capacity to increase through infrastructure improvements or the introduction of larger

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rolling stock as peak-time passenger demand approaches the service’s capacity.

Scaling the Stourbridge model

Recent discussions at Dudley Council House explored how the Stourbridge model could be expanded to improve local transport connections. Hosted by Cat Eccles, MP for Stourbridge, the meeting brought Pre Metro together with senior representatives from Dudley Council, Transport for West Midlands and Black Country Transport. Pre Metro outlined how the model could be scaled up to provide a service between Stourbridge Junction and Brierley Hill’s Round Oak Steel Facility, operating in either tramway or rail mode. According to Pre Metro, the model could operate at up to 50 per cent of the cost of conventional rail services, with lower infrastructure and maintenance costs. Very Light Rail could therefore offer an affordable, sustainable way to connect more communities to the wider railway network. By improving connectivity, Very Light Rail could increase access to rail services and support passenger growth. Where demand exceeds capacity, larger rail vehicles could provide a route to further expansion. The discussion also explored how the proposed Dudley Dasher could complement wider Black Country transport and

regeneration plans. Participants considered the Stourbridge–Brierley Hill connection in the context of existing infrastructure, future investment and regional priorities. Pre Metro Chairman Steve Jasper said: ‘Bringing key organisations around the same table is an important step. We now have an opportunity to work collaboratively, understand how the Dasher can complement wider transport and regeneration plans, and establish a realistic pathway for taking the proposal forward.’ Pre Metro expects a larger stakeholder meeting later this year to explore a shared position and agree next steps. The focus will be on clarifying the proposal’s requirements, its relationship with other programmes and its potential contribution to connectivity across the Black Country.

to improve future proposals. The Dudley Dasher presents an opportunity to explore how that knowledge might inform a new and innovative approach to connection within a broader regional transport strategy. For Pre Metro, the message to the Taskforce is clear: Britain already has experience that can help shape more affordable transport. The opportunity is to establish where those lessons apply and give suitable schemes a realistic route towards delivery.

From experience to policy

The Dudley discussions reflect the wider challenge facing the Mass Transit Taskforce. Operational experience is most useful when authorities and promoters can apply it through clear development processes, appropriate funding arrangements and informed choices about the technology a corridor needs. Stourbridge provides a practical starting point. Its years of service offer evidence that can be examined, challenged and used

Tel: 01384 441 325 Email: info@premetro.org Visit: www.premetro.co.uk

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DELIVERING THE GOODS by Alexandra Herdman

Joined-up Decarbonisation Alexandra Herdman, Policy Lead – Multimodal at Logistics UK, on why decarbonising rail freight will depend on a wholesystem approach

or those of us who know and love the rail industry, it just makes sense to put more freight on rail. However, there is an uphill battle against ageing infrastructure, timetabling, fixed costs, and perceived barriers for new entrants. For many industries, such as aggregates, use of rail freight makes sense and is happening already, providing a bulk delivery option that is cost effective and time efficient. But many of the UK’s industries still rely on road freight to provide the delivery solution their customers require, without considering the benefits of rail, which could be more environmentally friendly and cost effective. Logistics UK recently held a workshop on the issues affecting the sector with its rail members, to identify how to make efficiencies and reduce the cost of using rail freight, and consider how to make the mode a more attractive option for prospective customers. Rail businesses deemed it critical to identify the barriers to the expansion of the sector, and debated how rail freight might expand to drive future economic growth. Regulatory controls were identified as a key barrier to uptake; those taking part felt that successive governments have not invested enough into new rail and port infrastructure, meaning that there is little to no investment currently directed to supporting rail freight flows into and out of ports. It was also felt that government policy is slow to react and does not maintain pace with the sector: there are many examples available of those with excellent plans to increase the attractiveness of rail freight, such as the DP World Modal Shift programme, which offers considered financial incentives to key customers. It is clear that if the pricing is set at an appropriate level, rail freight market sector share can rise exponentially, and schemes like this must be encouraged to promote new ways of working across the sector. 26

If the Labour government is serious about achieving the rail freight growth target of 75 per cent, Germany’s recent cut in access charges by 50 per cent was quoted as a prime example of a bold new way of thinking which can get results – something similar could work in the UK. There is an appetite for new flows, and as the Network Rail Track Access Discount Policy has shown, the discount benefit is a clear method to incentivise new customers. Across the UK’s rail network, there are a number of key bottlenecks which disrupt and delay services and cause issues for potential rail freight customers. These include the Ely North Junction, Transpennine Route, West Coast Mainline and Felixstowe to Nuneaton Route. Without the reliability of service that they need, and the ability to accommodate the volume they require, customers will continue to choose road freight above all other transport modes. Key to making this happen is investment in the network to create the necessary capacity that key retailers and other buyers of freight services require to make the switch – with confidence in the network’s capacity and reliability will come a switch in volumes that could prove transformational to rail freight’s fortunes. Logistics UK is committed to keeping pressure on the government to make this happen. A key benefit of modal shift from road to rail is the resulting environmental benefits that those in the industry are well aware of. However, although those in the sector and in government are aware of the positive benefits which can result in terms of reducing emissions, congestion and improved sustainability, broader public awareness still lags behind and limited policy action has been forthcoming. At the same time, the government currently does not incentivise businesses in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions, a situation which has resulted in a ‘laissez

Logistics UK is one of the UK’s biggest business groups, representing logistics businesses which are vital to keeping the UK trading, and more than seven million people directly employed in the making, selling and moving of goods. With decarbonisation, new technology and other disruptive forces driving change in the way goods move across borders and through the supply chain, logistics has never been more important to UK plc. Logistics UK supports, shapes and stands up for safe and efficient logistics, and is the only business group which represents the whole industry, with members from the road, rail, water and air industries, as well as the buyers of freight services such as retailers and manufacturers whose businesses depend on the efficient movement of goods. For more information about the organisation and its work, please visit logistics.org.uk

faire’ attitude from customers who do not seek alternatives to their current delivery arrangements. Costs are rising exponentially, including labour and rolling stock costs, track access charges and the cost of electric traction. Without investment in new infrastructure and complementary subsidies and incentives, business will not make the necessary changes to switch loads from road to rail. Underpinning all these ambitions is the need for new, reliable infrastructure to provide a nationwide network of rail options for those moving freight. Over several decades, a lack of consistent, long-term funding for rail freight projects has resulted in a stop-start mentality that does not see any meaningful development through to conclusion. If the new government is serious in its commitment to the role of the sector in driving growth in the economy, it is vital that politicians back the industry’s strategic vision for rail freight the backbone of the UK’s entire freight network. Fundamental to the success of this ambition is the need for a plan from government, developed with the industry to identify how rail freight growth is to be achieved. The sector has plenty of ideas but must make clear to government what its priorities are, and align the ambitions of the two for the benefit of all. Rail freight has a key role to play in the country’s economic recovery – now is the time for those in the sector to make their voices heard, for the benefit of all. Logistics UK stands ready to lead the conversation.

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GEOTECHNICAL

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/ 1400 lumens) with a battery pack at the rear, making it balanced and comfortable to wear. Durable, it is fall and impact resistant, waterproof and dustproof, making it suitable for various work conditions. It features a large rotating knob that is easy to use, even when wearing gloves, and the removable battery is USB-C rechargeable. The PIXA® is designed to meet the needs of maintenance and industrial professionals. Durable, waterproof, and resistant to certain chemicals, it is ideal for intensive and demanding professional use. The PIXA® comes with the CORE PRO rechargeable battery (1250 mAh). It’s removable and can be switched out in order to continue working. Featuring CONSTANT LIGHTING technology, it provides a constant level of brightness. Casting 600 lumens in BOOST mode and three beam types (wide, mixed, and focused).

Petzl Work at Height Solutions

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GEOTECHNICAL

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DIGITAL RAILWAY

Jonathan Hyde Director at Risk Solutions

Risk Solutions builds agent-based models and data analysis tools, specialising in linking large, diverse datasets and visualising complex data. Jonathan Hyde’s work on SaviRPM, the company’s rail performance model, has helped operators and Network Rail test timetable changes and quantify the effect of small delays before committing resources.

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Jonathan Hyde of Risk Solutions about agentbased modelling of rail performance, what it has revealed about the effect of small delays, and how modelling helps operators and Network Rail reach agreement on difficult decisions SSH: Risk Solutions describes itself as ‘bringing clarity to complex, real-world issues.’ What does that actually look like day to day when the issue is a railway timetable or performance problem? JH: Many of us do not appreciate how complex a railway system is, and we should not need to. We just want a train to be at the right place at the right time to pick us up: reliable, comfortable, clean, safe and cost effective, an alternative to sitting on a motorway or trudging out of town to an airport. It cannot be that hard, can it? As it turns out, doing this with a system that does not always behave the way you 30

might expect is a tough challenge. The railway system is complex, and ‘complex’ can be formally characterised and identified – the railway system definitely has it. We partner with an organisation called CECAN (Centre for Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus – www.cecan.ac.uk), which studies complex systems and looks for innovative ways to manage them, to improve efficiency and performance and to avoid the unexpected. Railway systems have many interactions between interdependent components (passengers, staff, trains, signalling, track layout), their behaviours are often nonlinear (a small nudge might produce a large

response), they have components that adapt and learn (people), and they are susceptible to rare events like extreme weather. We work with train operating companies and Network Rail to model some of these real-world complexities so they can manage that complexity and deliver improvements. This is part of an increasingly digital railway. Data modelling helps our clients explore the underlying causes of performance problems before they happen, and test potential solutions to see which ideas are most likely to help. This avoids the need for expensive, time-consuming real world testing, and reduces the unintended surprises when a change goes wrong.

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For example, one part of a digital railway is to model changes to timetables, checking whether faster journey times, more stops at more locations, or more frequent services are feasible without introducing extra delays to existing services. We also model the impact of a temporary speed restriction imposed for hot-weather safety reasons, to see whether it is likely to trigger cascading delays across the wider network, and we test alternative contingency plans to find those that deal with a major incident with the least disruption to passengers. Finally, we model a full range of system reliability, from excellent to very poor, to identify tipping points in performance and reveal where the hotspots are. Digital railway modelling helps rapidly explore the uncertainties of these complex interactions between train services. You can model hundreds of possible ‘days like this’ instead of waiting to see what actually happens today or tomorrow. This is a valuable tool for complex decision making. SSH: SaviRPM grew out of the RSSB and Network Rail Sandbox programme. What gap in existing tools was it built to fill, and why was an agent-based approach the right one for rail performance rather than a more conventional simulation? JH: Other train simulation tools existed at the time, providing micro realism by modelling detailed railway system components. These are powerful tools for understanding individual service interactions across complex junctions and along relatively short routes, but they faced challenges when scaled up to model the interactions between multiple routes over longer distances, for example a complete train journey end to end such as Plymouth to York, Paddington to Swansea, or London to Glasgow, which matters particularly for freight journeys covering long distances. For existing models, there is a considerable cost in resources and time to set up and run at these distances and complexities, and the results were often difficult to interpret. There is a lot of value in being able to model end-to-end train journeys and the interactions between routes that criss-cross the country. A delayed train at the end of its journey can affect the departure of its return journey, causing cascading lateness through the day across several timetabled journeys.

In one modelled example, a badly delayed London to Birmingham and back service took three journeys before the delay had fully recovered, illustrating that dependency. Trains that delay each other where routes cross can also cascade lateness into completely different parts of the network, an effect that would not be visible if you were only modelling one local area. So we developed a different approach: • First, one capable of modelling whole service routes, covering the interactions between all timetabled services across a relatively wide area. We model whole routes including Western, West Coast or Anglia. We did this by researching the level of modelling detail required to capture the interactions between services while keeping a practical computing demand for large areas of the country. • Second, we used agent-based modelling to capture the complexities of train interactions and other system interdependencies, such as the stock and crew required for each timetabled service and the number of passengers using it. • Third, in partnership with City St George’s, University of London, giCentre, we developed interactive visualisations to dig into the many gigabytes of modelled results (thousands of trains interacting across many hundreds of modelled timetabled days). These data analysis tools help reveal where and when performance starts to degrade and identify root causes. At Risk Solutions we have used agent-based modelling for complex systems for over 20 years, choosing the level of detail carefully to deliver valuable insight with the minimum of setup complexity and data. This is based on our established approach exploring complex systems, including animal disease control (avian influenza and foot and mouth disease), water abstraction modelling and road traffic congestion modelling. We have found that agent-based modelling of complexity produces

Multiple model runs testing system reliability (incidents and delays) and capacity utilisation (trains per hour), tipping from good (green) to poor (red) performance.

SaviRPM example modelled route scope.

results that match observed processes and stakeholder descriptions, reflecting recognisable narratives back to stakeholders and experts. This is key to people refining their underlying assumptions about the system they are working with, supporting debate and inspiring new and creative solutions. The programme began as a ‘sandbox’ project: RSSB and Network Rail made industry data available to the research community, providing both funding and data, along with an expert panel to direct and give feedback on our modelling and research work. Their commitment to the programme was strong, and we have continued a close relationship with them since to update datasets and receive further feedback. The other aspect of our approach is rooted in our name, Risk Solutions: working out how to deal with uncertainty and complexity using a risk-based approach. So our tools help clients ask questions such as ‘what is the risk to performance introduced by this proposed speed restriction?’ and ‘what are the likely performance benefits of this new timetable?’ As well as providing standard average-performance answers, such as ‘it will improve average arrival punctuality by ten per cent’, our modelling also provides reliability and resilience answers, such as ‘it will help reduce really bad performing days from one in ten to one in twenty.’ SSH: You’ve used SaviRPM to explore things like social distancing’s effect on dwell times and the potential performance impact of HS2 sharing routes with conventional services on the West Coast. When a client asks a question like that, how much of the value is in the answer versus in the process of building the model and forcing everyone to agree on the assumptions? JH: Most modellers agree that the model does not give you the answer to a problem. Instead, the modelling process provides a structured way to explore the problem. Discussions between the experts involved in 31

DIGITAL RAILWAY

source formats, yet they are crucial: a stock or crew diagram tells you which physical train set and staff have been allocated to each timetabled journey. There are only a limited number of these resources available at any time, and they need to arrive from a wide range of places and other, possibly late, services. Representing these interactions accurately is essential to modelling how services really run. SSH: Has a model ever told you something that contradicted what experienced operators believed to be true? How did that conversation go?

Boarding and alighting times during the Covid pandemic, image courtesy of RSSB.

a modelling project help share information that is often kept in organisational silos and build a common understanding of which issues are most important to focus on. For social distancing, much of the underlying delay data was already in place, but we needed to add the effect of social distancing on dwell time, the time a train sits at a station while passengers board and alight. Sheffield University had already done a lot of work modelling the platform-train interface, so by working with them we were able to add their data to our existing dataset. With RSSB, we were able to start looking at results within about a month. The modelling was able to quantify the overall performance impact of relatively small increases in dwell time, and to show that this had a much greater effect on suburban stopping services, which stop more frequently and have less time to recover from delay, than on intercity services. This confirmed the expert view with a quantified performance shift. The HS2 modelling showed that when HS2 services run over conventional lines, sharing them with other local and intercity services, they are susceptible to the same congestion and cascading lateness experienced on the network today, and that timetables can be adjusted to optimise performance in the same way as they are now. In all of our agent-based modelling projects, being able to model a complex system is a great way to bring domain experts together to share their expertise and advice, and to discuss what might occur and how best to resolve issues. SSH: Agent-based models live or die on the quality and realism of the data feeding them. What’s the hardest type of railway data to get right? JH: Our approach is always to use readily available data to feed our models wherever possible; they are absolutely data driven. This is powerful, because it lets us update models with new source data, model new parts of the network, or update for new 32

JH: We looked at ‘troublesome trains’ for an operator already delivering a lot of services in a busy, close-to-capacity part of the network, where cascading lateness (one train delaying another, which delays another) is a real issue. We were asked to identify the services most likely to cause performance issues and conflicts with other services, so that the operator could treat them as ‘golden trains’ and give them priority, on the reasoning that this would cause less disruption to other services overall. It was a good piece of thinking and the idea makes sense. When our modelling identified the top 20 trains causing the most delay to other services, we made them, in effect, immune to the everyday delays and perturbations that normally affect them. There was an improvement in performance, but it was not significant enough for the operator to justify the effort, which was a genuinely counterintuitive result. When we investigated, we found that although performance for those 20 trains improved, another 20 trains were ‘waiting in the wings’ and went on to cause almost as much disruption. The number of trains causing delay was much larger than the manageable set of 20, or even 40, that had been assumed. This triggered further investigation into low-level, ‘subthreshold’ delays, those under three minutes, which individually are too small to prompt attention but which we showed have a much stronger impact on overall service performance than a small number of persistently troublesome trains. Reducing these small delays across a larger number of services would significantly improve performance.

timetables or rolling stock types. But it relies on the new data being accurate and consistent, which in our experience it rarely is, a common problem across every sector we have worked in, not just rail. We develop automated processes to restructure, clean and infill each data source in preparing model input files. Each source dataset has its own challenges, but passenger and freight journey demand is one of the hardest to get hold of. If I may be controversial, I think this is because the rail industry is not yet effectively measured on the performance of actual passenger journeys or freight tonnage; there is instead a strong emphasis on measuring train service arrivals, which is easier to measure. So there is not a strong incentive to understand the impact of decisions on the actual journeys experienced by passengers or delivered for freight. Train service arrival time is a good proxy for passenger arrival time, but our modelling has shown that the two metrics can produce different answers, because the number of passenger journeys affected by a delay depends on how many passengers are travelling on the affected train, something that is lost when you only measure train arrival performance. SaviRPM models passengers travelling by train as well as the train journeys themselves, so we can measure the impact of solutions on passenger journey arrival times. But good passenger origin and destination demand data is hard to get hold of and difficult to keep up to date. A digital railway really needs to know where its passenger and freight demand is, and to measure how well it is delivering against it. Another example of hard-to-model data is integrating the train timetable with stock and crew diagrams. These do not integrate well in their native SaviRPM Summary visualisation; on time performance from 100 modelled days.

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move on to digital replacements. It could also leave us with a legacy knowledge base: new generations of engineers, managers and operators will be ‘digital by default’, expecting decisions to be supported by advanced modelling and digital twins as the norm rather than primarily by ‘asking the expert’, and increasingly by AI-based reasoning. And because a digital railway, like digital roads, is likely to involve real-time feedback and decision-making, it points again to digital twins running agent-based model scenarios rapidly on live data. SSH: Digital railway gets used to mean everything from digital twins to predictive maintenance to in-cab signalling – where do you place your own work on that spectrum?

Figure: © HS2: an early visualisation of an HS2 train.

I would note that this is specific to a train operator running many services in an area close to network capacity, and that in a less congested part of the network, prioritising a small number of troublesome trains could be the right approach. The value of the modelling was in testing an idea, based on operational experience, against the specific context before committing resources to it. SSH: Between STEM ambassador work in schools and the models you build for operators, do you find yourself explaining the same fundamental ideas – cause, effect, uncertainty – to teenagers and to Network Rail? JH: On the one hand, humans are extremely good at making difficult risk-based decisions; we do this every day, for example every time we cross the road, balancing uncertainty and possible impacts to act with confidence. At the same time, we often find complexity and uncertainty very difficult to process, and become like a rabbit in the headlights, stuck and unable to act. Whether at school or as an expert in rail operations, we need help at these moments to ‘see’ the message hidden behind the complexity. We have found that modelling complex systems, and discussing the possible outcomes, both obvious and surprising, helps people understand complexity, share their expertise more widely, and gain better insight into both the causes of problems and how to solve them. SSH: The HS2 whole-life value tool has to weigh cost against benefit delivery on decisions made years, sometimes decades, before benefits land. How do you build a model that stays credible over that kind of timescale, when the assumptions underneath it will inevitably need revisiting? JH: You cannot build a model now that will accurately predict a future 20 or 30 years away. We are not trying to model the one and only future; instead, we explore what might happen under different sets of

assumptions and work closely with clients to understand how changes might affect the system. It is valuable to think hard about all the things that might change, the ‘what ifs’, test them through modelling, compare the possible long-term outcomes, and discuss the impacts to direct today’s decisions. Crucially, the models are updated over time as underlying assumptions change, so you can check back into the work to see whether decisions need adjusting. This is a key part of evaluation: paying attention to how yesterday’s decisions are playing out in reality, whether they are achieving what was hoped or planned, so that adjustments can be made to nudge a project back on track, or in a new direction. This kind of ongoing project evaluation is another area where Risk Solutions helps clients. SSH: Risk Solutions’ broader philosophy is that ‘do nothing’ may be the riskiest decision of all. Where in digital railway specifically do you see that playing out – an area where inaction on digital investment is quietly the bigger risk, even though it doesn’t feel like a decision at all? JH: We did some thinking recently, about how to spot signs of organisational memory loss: when an organisation forgets how something is done, risks that were previously mitigated can reappear. This is a recognised phenomenon, though not well understood. A digital railway should be able to help here, providing digital mechanisms to retain knowledge embedded in current and historical processes and procedures, design principles, attitudes and culture, and to alert us when something important has been lost without our realising it, particularly around safety. This is not the first thing people think of when they talk about a digital railway, but given the separation of the rail system through privatisation, there is a real risk of this kind of memory loss, and digital tools should be able to help avoid it as the industry moves into Great British Railways. Doing nothing could leave us with a legacy railway, run on ageing technology that becomes harder to maintain as suppliers

JH: Digital railway is a broad term. Our work is only one part of that revolution: we use data and modelling to help the industry gain a better understanding and discussion of performance and capacity risk, building a more resilient rail service for passengers and freight that can face the challenges of increasing demand. The subthreshold delay example is a good one: digital railway modelling revealed that managing subthreshold delays, those under three minutes, has a significant effect on performance. We are using the emerging data offered by an increasingly digital railway to improve our strategic decisionmaking tools like SaviRPM, identifying potential risks to performance, assessing potential solutions, and helping build a more robust and resilient system for passengers and freight. SSH: Risk Solutions talks about using models as ‘a safe space within which to structure often difficult conversations’. What does a difficult rail conversation actually look like when you’re running one of those sessions? JH: An example of a difficult conversation is when the network needs to run more trains to keep pace with rising passenger demand, but there are bottlenecks where experienced system operators know that adding an extra train could tip services into cascading delays. The train operator needs to run the extra service; Network Rail, responsible for managing all the services through that part of the network, recognises the risks of impacting other services and other stakeholders. That tension can create a difficult conversation. The value of modelling is to be able to quantify the additional risk of adding that extra train: modelling perhaps 100 different days of the same timetable including the new service, and looking at how many poorperforming days might result. Modelled results can be used to estimate the average performance impact, for the train operator’s own services and for third-party services. Individual simulated conflicts can be 33

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examined to discover root causes, and over multiple simulations, how likely they are to occur. These measured results give both sides a quantified basis for the conversation, for example agreeing that the extra train will create a few more poor-performing days, but that this is an acceptable risk, avoiding a stalemate. Sometimes the outcome is a compromise, such as re-timing the new service, which can then be remodelled to check this has an acceptable impact on other services. SSH: The Rail Performance Model was built with City University of London’s computer science department, and Risk Solutions has also worked with the University of Surrey’s CRESS centre. What does a decade-long partner relationship like that let you build that a one-off collaboration never could? JH: Two things: transferring skills, and opportunities for further collaboration. Risk Solutions has learned from the university a lot about how to visualise complex datasets, valuable across our other work with complex systems, while the university has learned about the real-world issues of rail performance and how the industry devises solutions to them, seeing how their visualisation research has enabled new

Example modelled service journeys interacting, example modelled day (08:45-11:00).

decisions about complexity and performance. Different skills, useful to each other. Working together over this length of time has let us continue to evolve the work: we have changed our modelling approach, City University’s giCentre has improved the data visualisations, and we remain in that relationship. The seed funding came from Network Rail and RSSB in the sandbox days, but it is now our clients, through their ongoing work with us, who fund the continued development of both the modelling and the visualisations, and

clients’ feedback feeds directly back into that development. We are also working with the giCentre on a separate project to formalise the investigation process used to get to root causes quickly within these large modelled datasets. The aim is to identify gaps in the analysis process where new visualisations could be developed, feeding back into better tools for clients to reach insights more quickly, and potentially to discover new insights hidden in the model data that have not yet been found.

Bringing clarity to complex real-world issues Risk Solutions have helped clients for more than 25 years rise to the challenge of complexity, uncertainty and risk. Working closely with you, your organisation and stakeholders … using advanced mapping, modelling and qualitative and quantitative analytical methods … we can help you understand the issues, reach better decisions and learn from experience.

enquiries@risksol.co.uk

DIGITAL RAILWAY

More Data, More Passengers A new white paper by Independent Rail Retailers makes a £500 million case for switching on the Availability Distribution Service

ndependent Rail Retailers (IRR) has renewed its call for rail to embrace open data, arguing that a relatively simple technical upgrade could unlock hundreds of millions in extra revenue and transform how passengers search for journeys. In its new white paper, More Data, More Passengers, IRR urges the industry to activate the Availability Distribution Service (ADS), a capability already largely built into the rail reservation system, with around 90 per cent of its functionality already within the existing architecture. At the heart of IRR’s pitch is a familiar problem: the look to book limits baked into the Rail Availability and Reservation Service (RARS). Every fare search must be sent to the central system and strict query caps mean retailers cannot offer calendar views, weekly searches or “anywhere/ anytime” discovery tools. IRR says this is holding rail back at precisely the moment passengers expect richer, more flexible search experiences. ADS, they argue, is the fix. By allowing accredited retailers to hold availability data locally, with RARS still validating and booking tickets, rail could move to a modern, local first model. Most searches would run on retailers’ own systems, with RARS sending updates within seconds. The result: more options for passengers, far fewer queries hitting the central system and lower operating costs for the taxpayer. The commercial upside is significant. Jacobs’ research commissioned by IRR in 2025 estimates £500 million a year in additional revenue from better search results, higher conversion and more effective use of real time pricing. The same study found 23 per cent of users abandon their search at the first fare screen, often because they cannot see a fuller range of options. ADS would enable the kind of multi day and multi destination search tools that airlines have offered for years. The research also highlights a major untapped market: 60 per cent of people are actively looking for new places to visit by train and 85 per cent would use a rail

‘Britain’s railways already generate enormous amounts of valuable data every day. ADS shows how opening up that information can unlock real benefits for passengers and the industry. Current systems are outdated and no longer reflect how people expect to comparison service if one existed. The IRR plan and buy travel. says ADS is the missing ingredient that would make such tools viable, helping rail Passengers want compete more effectively for discretionary leisure travel. clarity, simplicity and The white paper also points to emerging channels such as AI travel assistants which better tools to help will increasingly need open data to compare them make decisions. fares across multiple retailers. The IRR argues that rail risks falling behind other This is a moment modes unless it enables the same kind of digital innovation. for meaningful reform. IRR stresses that ADS is a low risk change that does not require new legislation and Rail modernisation does not alter pricing or introduce new discounts. Instead, it improves distribution should not just be and conversion, allowing retailers to structural; it should compete on service rather than system capacity or look to book allowances. Though also be digital, with the Railways Bill is progressing through Parliament and GBR taking shape, the IRR passengers and argues there is no need to wait, and the timing is ideal for switching ADS on and innovation at its core.’ letting the market do the rest. The full publication is available here. www.independentrailretailers.co.uk/ads.

Anthony Smith, IRR Chair

INTERVIEW

Steve Williams Managing Director, NX UK & Ireland Steve Williams has 20 years’ experience in the UK logistics sector and leads NX’s operations in the UK and Ireland. At Multimodal 2026 in Birmingham, the company set out plans to extend its UK business beyond its traditional Japanrelated trade into the Americas, India and wider Asian markets. Its emissions targets, validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, commit it to cutting Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42 per cent and Scope 3 emissions by 25 per cent by 2030, against a 2020 baseline.

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Steve Williams, Managing Director of NX UK & Ireland, about the cost gap between rail and road freight, the limits of the UK network, supply chain resilience and how the company is approaching decarbonisation and AI SSH: Track access charges for rail freight have risen 26 per cent in real terms since 2015, while road has repeatedly had fuel duty frozen or cut. From where you sit, is that cost gap the main reason shippers don’t shift to rail, or is it something else? SW: You’re right that it’s a real imbalance. When it comes to funding, freight has always been at the back end of the equation, which is bizarre given that cargo is effectively the blood and veins of the economy. We’re an island, so the ports and, by extension, the roads and rail network should be very high on the list of national 36

priorities. Instead, it tends to be a case of robbing one to pay the other, which isn’t the way it should be. If you want to promote investment, you have to let companies feel they’ll get a return from it rather than overtaxing them, whether that’s from a duty or an entrycharge point of view. It’s similar to the wider problem with business taxation in the UK: we’ve got the wrong end of the stick when it comes to encouraging growth. You’re not going to get it by constantly taxing the commercial side; it should be the opposite. Historically, rail infrastructure in East Asia and elsewhere was built primarily to move goods rather than people, which makes sense: it was trade, not passenger travel, that built the network. In the UK, our infrastructure has been built more around moving people. Roads, meanwhile, are being jammed up by the sheer number of trucks doing long distances, which itself is a productivity hit. There’s a case for diverting money into rail on that basis alone, though personally I’d rather see the government find that money from elsewhere in the public

purse rather than from within the supply chain sector itself. Ultimately, you need a genuinely business-orientated government to make that shift happen, and I’m not sure we have that at present, or that it’s about to change. SSH: The argument for rail freight always runs aground on last-mile connectivity. Network Rail’s own position is that rail does the long-distance heavy lifting and road handles the final miles, but for a logistics operator that has to offer an end-to-end solution, how workable is that model in practice? SW: We want to look at both models, because we want a broad offering that gives customers choice. There’s already a harmonised product for Europe that gets freight as far as Duisburg, but the question is what happens after that: do you complete the journey as rail all the way through, with just the final mile by road, or do you treat it as a rail-and-road combination from an earlier point? Some customers will want rail

INTERVIEW

taken as close to their site as possible; others may prefer the flexibility of everything being hubbed into Duisburg and distributed from there to multiple delivery points. Both approaches need to be on offer. More broadly, once you’ve built a product with a genuine degree of confidence behind it, in the sense of a guaranteed allocation on a service, you can market and sell it properly rather than treating it as an ad hoc, lastresort option. That’s the lesson I took from an earlier rail product I ran between Turkey and the UK: you effectively have to commit to something like block space on a service, or you lose the integrity of the product, because customers want consistency, not a service that runs one week and not the next. SSH: The UK rail network was built for passengers. Freight competes for paths on the same lines, faces loading gauge restrictions that won’t accept standard high-cube containers on many routes, and there’s a recognised shortage of strategic intermodal terminals. Does the infrastructure as it stands actually support serious modal shift ambitions, or is the 75 per cent growth target by 2050 being set against a network that isn’t configured for it? SW: I don’t profess to be an expert on the infrastructure itself, but if you look across every transport mode in this country, seaports, airports, rail, they’ve all suffered from a lack of investment, scale and resilience. Rail has improved from a passenger point of view over the years, but you only need to look at how long something like HS2 takes to be delivered to see how slow modernisation is. There needs to be more investment, certainly, but also more awareness and a bigger push, including from government working more closely with industry. If there were a genuine boom in demand for rail freight tomorrow, I don’t think the UK’s infrastructure could cope with it, but that’s equally true of road and air freight and ocean freight; we saw that with PPE during the pandemic, when neither warehousing nor airport capacity was equal to a sudden surge in one mode. SSH: Great British Railways is still taking shape, and the Railways Bill includes commitments to give freight operators fair access to the network. From a shipper’s perspective, does structural reform of that kind move the needle, or is the day-to-day friction for freight operators something that reorganising who’s in charge won’t fix? SW: I hope it does move the needle. Right now, passenger services effectively get premium access to the network, and freight comes second. The two should be treated equally. If that changes, it should help speed up growth for operators like GB Railfreight and others, and it may also encourage new

operators into the market, which is a good thing. Having more competitors is what keeps everyone on their toes, keeps the sector modernising and developing, and ultimately helps drive more people towards using rail freight year-round, which has to be the ambition. SSH: You’ve said the companies that recover fastest know their alternatives before the crisis hits. In your experience, how prepared are British shippers actually? SW: Not fully prepared, no. Most companies will have some kind of plan B, but it’s usually only sufficient for a short period, or at a much smaller scale than what’s actually needed, so there’s pain either way when a crisis hits. Our industry is generally very good at adapting: flights to Japan that used to take twelve hours now take fourteen because of restricted airspace, and container vessels are taking longer routes via South Africa rather than through the Red Sea, even as that route has begun to reopen. But there comes a point where you can’t simply adapt your way around a problem. The UK is particularly vulnerable here because we tend to be dependent on single points of failure, whether that’s the National Grid coming close to power shortages, or a single incident closing an airport. That’s why it matters to be able to offer customers a genuine choice across modes, air, ocean, rail and road, in various combinations, because that gives us a fighting chance of delivering even when one route is disrupted. But across all four of those modes, the UK has vulnerabilities running through it, partly infrastructure, partly the slowness of the planning and regulatory system. SSH: Decarbonisation is this year’s Multimodal theme. Where’s the gap between what companies are saying and what they’re doing? SW: We’re tracking against our sciencebased targets: we’re active on Scope 1 and 2, while Scope 3 is more complicated and will take longer. Could we do more? Absolutely. Affordability and technology are both factors. Electric vehicles are a good example: the early models were expensive, had poor range and weren’t especially good on battery quality. Now that mainstream manufacturers are fully invested, there’s far more choice, competitiveness and investment, and vehicles offering five or six hundred miles on a single charge, which is roughly the point needed to win over the majority of people. The bigger problem is infrastructure. If everyone switched to electric vehicles and solar panels tomorrow, the National Grid isn’t currently set up to take all of the energy that would be generated, or to return power efficiently to households wanting to feed excess solar back into it. Add to that the number of people living in flats, who

have no obvious way to charge a vehicle, and it’s clear that the physical infrastructure to support these ambitions isn’t there yet. Building the vehicles is only one part of the answer; you also need a much more joinedup approach to delivering the infrastructure that makes them usable, or targets, like the phase-out date for new fossil fuel vehicles, will simply keep being pushed back, as they already have been. SSH: What is AI actually changing in logistics operations right now, as opposed to what’s still aspiration? SW: In live use today, we’re trialling automation around data creation, specifically the automated creation of freight files that would otherwise have to be built manually once a shipment moves from an inbound to an outbound station on our forwarding platform. That’s gone through trials, though there’s still a human signoff on it. We’re cautious more broadly about where AI could go, particularly around protecting customer and staff information, and around the risk of an error being replicated at scale if something is automated incorrectly. We don’t want to be left behind, but we’re not looking to be at the very front of adoption either. Looking further ahead, I’d expect a lot of reporting and milestone-event creation to become automated. I don’t think people will ever be fully replaced in this industry, because freight and logistics is fundamentally a face-to-face, trust-based business. What AI should allow us to do is achieve more with the same infrastructure and workforce, rather than being used as a quick route to reducing headcount. Given NX’s heritage of looking after its staff, any idea of AI as a shortcut to cutting a large proportion of the workforce isn’t on our radar. SSH: What does a poor supply chain partner look like in 2026, and what are the signs shippers should watch for? SW: I’d turn this back to one of our own strengths, which is customer service. That’s something you see reflected in Japan’s public transport network and in Japanese business more generally, and it’s something we strive to replicate with our customers here. Customer service shouldn’t be allowed to erode because of external pressures; it’s our job to find a fix for every challenge, even the difficult ones. I think a lot of poor supply chain partners fall back on blaming someone else, a third party, the weather, rather than building in contingency for foreseeable risks. Ultimately, it comes down to always operating with the customer’s best interests at the forefront. We’re running a business and we’re here for our shareholders too, but without customers there’s nothing, so customer service has to come first in everything we do. 37

Real Revenue Management for Rail Operators Who Demand More

Expretio is the leading provider of AI-driven rail revenue management, helping

operators forecast and optimize demand, increase revenues, grow ridership and make better use of rail capacity. Our Appia system is the most widely used rail revenue management solution in the world.

Years rail RM history & experience

37M

Managed departures per year

20B

Inventory authorizations per year

480M

Passengers per year

DIGITAL RAILWAY

The 24-Cent Question Eric Nordling, General Manager at Expretio makes the case for filling Europe’s trains through smarter pricing

aking rail more attractive and accessible is a shared political agenda across Western governments – improving affordable and sustainable transport for citizens while reducing the size of rail subsidies for taxpayers. As a Revenue Management advocate (borderline evangelist), I believe price is the pathway to fix both. In this article, I share my view on the fundamental economics of transportation and the behaviour of passengers that use it, built around one simple idea: Europe’s railways already own almost all the capacity they need to grow – they just aren’t optimally pricing that capacity. Everything below, from the physics of an empty seat to the historical comparison with aviation, comes back to that point. Please visit my LinkedIn page and share your comments – and please do challenge me, if you think I have this wrong.

Cost-based pricing and willingness to pay First, we must agree that cost is not a great way to set rail fares. Even if we’d like to eliminate subsidies entirely, the chance of that is low. There will always be some cost that gets subsidised, so total cost is never fully covered by ticket sales alone. Attempting to recoup total cost through higher ticket prices would actually reduce overall revenue, as we’ll see later on. Price, for rail fares as for many things we buy, is more a function of demand than of cost. Most consumers don’t think about what it costs to produce what they buy; they think about what they’re willing to pay for it. A home with an ocean view probably costs about the same to build as one without, but demand makes it more expensive. A rail seat at 2am and one at 5pm cost roughly the same to provide, but demand for them is very different. This demand-driven approach to price is often called Willingness to Pay. Understanding the purchasing decision from the passenger’s perspective – their willingness to pay – is key to setting the optimal price.

Marginal cost – what an empty seat actually costs

Even though total cost isn’t the right basis for setting fares, there is one small piece of cost we do need to know: marginal cost.

‘There are millions of family trips across Europe that a moderate fare reduction could tilt the other way, back onto rail.’ Marginal cost is what it costs to put one more passenger into a seat that would otherwise travel empty. This is deliberately the simplest case: no other passenger is displaced, no higher-value seat is given up, and we’re talking about a standard seat, not a catering-inclusive first-class one where food and drink add real variable cost. It’s the floor for any fare we would set, not the whole picture. It is a way of establishing the absolute minimum any price should ever be, before we get to the more interesting question of what a passenger is actually willing to pay. We can work that floor out with a bit of physics. A typical 8-car electric intercity unit weighs around 360 tonnes empty and seats roughly 520 people. Running half-full, that’s

about 22 tonnes of passengers on board for a total of some 382 tonnes, meaning one additional passenger adds about 0.02 per cent to the train’s mass. A 300km intercity run, for example, takes roughly 5,000–5,500 kWh, costing somewhere in the region of €900–€1,200 at typical large-user European electricity rates. Based on that share of mass, one extra passenger would increase cost by roughly 18–24 euro cents – less than a small pastry. So: any fare for an otherwise-empty seat that clears 24 cents is pure profit on the marginal cost of energy. That’s the floor. But a floor tells you what not to go below, not what to charge – for that, we need to understand demand.

Demand elasticity

For the most part, demand for rail transportation is elastic. Take a route with 100 passengers a day paying €55: cut the fare to €45, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see volume grow to 135. That’s roughly an 18 per cent fare cut producing a 35 per cent increase in passengers – and total revenue rising accordingly. To state it plainly: a lower fare can produce more total revenue. Many people are tripped up by this and find it counterintuitive. I’ve seen it play out thousands of times over the years. 39

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‘Aside from the busiest high-speed corridors, average utilisation across most of Europe’s rail networks is low, and many departures run with empty seats.’ Cross-price elasticity

Rail doesn’t just compete with itself – it competes with alternative ways of making the same trip, or not making it at all. This is cross-price elasticity, and my favourite example is the family weighing up rail against the car. It doesn’t take much of a fare increase, especially once multiplied by four people, to tip that decision towards driving. There are millions of family trips across Europe that a moderate fare reduction could tilt the other way, back onto rail.

Willingness to pay, again

All this talk of lower fares needs the earlier point restated: prices should ultimately be set by willingness to pay, not simply cut across the board. The hard part of revenue management is knowing the demand level for a specific departure, and reserving fare reductions for the seats that would otherwise go empty without letting someone willing to pay full fare slip through on a discounted one. That’s dilution, and it’s the main thing that separates good revenue management from simply discounting.

Complex networks, and the technology to manage them

None of this is one fare on one train. A single service can serve hundreds of markets, each with its own demand curve and dozens of possible price points, which makes for thousands of combinations of fares and capacity to manage across a single departure, multiplied across a whole timetable. This is precisely the scale problem revenue management systems exist to solve: doing the calculations and trade-offs across all those combinations to find the mix that uses capacity best, informed increasingly by machine learning that can spot demand patterns a manual process never could.

Opportunity abounds – but it’s a different shape of opportunity So how does this add up to an opportunity for governments and rail operators across Europe? Here’s the scale of it. In 1975, world population was around 4.1 billion and global airline passengers were an estimated 400 million that year. Through the 1980s, revenue management and modern pricing techniques spread through aviation and 40

became standard practice. Fifty years later, in 2025, world population had roughly doubled to 8.2 billion – but airline passengers had grown more than 12-fold, past 5 billion a year. Europe’s railways haven’t grown anything like that fast. Rail travel has grown well ahead of population across the continent for decades – concentrated heavily in the highspeed corridors of France, Germany and Italy, which together carry the large majority of Europe’s high-speed rail passengers – but nowhere near aviation’s trajectory. It’s tempting to say the goal is to close that gap and chase aviation-style growth. That’s not realistic, and it’s worth being honest about why: airspace can expand by building more planes and opening more routes; a rail network’s physical capacity – tracks, platforms, paths through busy junctions – is far more fixed. Rail is probably not going to 12x, but it can do better than it does now. That said, physical capacity isn’t actually the constraint that matters most here. Aside from the busiest high-speed corridors, average utilisation across most of Europe’s rail networks is low, and many departures run with empty seats. The opportunity isn’t to somehow invent capacity the network doesn’t have; it’s to fill the capacity it already owns. That is exactly what the tools above are for. Marginal cost tells us how far fares can fall before we’re actually losing money on a seat – a matter of cents, not euros. Elasticity tells us that lower fares can bring in more revenue, not less. Cross-price elasticity tells us there’s a pool of car journeys that price alone can pull onto rail. And revenue management technology is what makes it possible to do all of this seat by seat, departure by departure, without discounting the seats someone would have paid full fare for anyway.

Getting there, though, means fares need to be free to respond to demand in the way this article describes – which is not the case today for large parts of the network, where complex rules and fixed formulas govern much of what can be charged. Reducing those rules, and simplifying fares so operators can price more responsively, is a significant step that would let this opportunity be realised. Rail’s growth over the past fifty years shows what’s possible even under today’s constraints. With a shift in mindset – and with the aid of the technology now available to manage it – the power of price optimisation could be brought fully to bear on rail across Europe, and the results could be extraordinary. Email: info@expretio.com Visit: www.expretio.com

ERIC NORDLING is General Manager at specialist rail revenue management technology provider, Expretio. He has spent over forty years working in revenue management across the aviation and passenger rail industries, including senior roles with Amtrak.

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Before the Cutover Karsten Oberle, Railway Business Development Lead Europe at Nokia on Designing GSM-R and FRMCS to Coexist

or most railway operators, the transition from GSM-R to FRMCS will unfold over years rather than with a single cutover event. During that period, existing GSM-R services must continue supporting live railway operations while FRMCS is introduced, validated and entrusted with greater responsibility. That makes coexistence more than a temporary migration state. It will be the operating architecture for several years. Railways will need to keep GSM-R dependable while they introduce FRMCS without disrupting current services. They will also need to manage mixed onboard equipment, support mission-critical communications across both environments, and keep operations clear for drivers, dispatchers, maintenance workers and control centres. So the practical question is not just how to deploy FRMCS. It is how to design a railway communications system that remains safe, predictable and manageable while two generations of technology operate side by side.

Start with the system, not the technology swap

GSM-R-to-FRMCS migration is sometimes discussed as if it were mainly a radio replacement or a generational upgrade from 2G to 5G. That framing understates the task. Railway communications are a system of systems. Radio access, spectrum, transmission, core functions, onboard gateways, applications, cab equipment, operational procedures, maintenance regimes, safety cases and supplier responsibilities all interact. During coexistence those interactions become more complex. Some trains may remain GSM-R-only. Others may be equipped for FRMCS. Some services may continue over GSM-R while others are introduced over FRMCS. Different routes, depots, borders and operating domains may move at different speeds. Engineering decisions made in one layer can create consequences elsewhere. ETCS shows why. In Level 2 operation, GSM-R is the data bearer for train control communications, including the exchange of movement information between the train and the Radio Block Centre. A 42

communications issue can therefore become a signalling, timetable and recovery issue, not just a telecoms fault. That is why the migration architecture must be designed around railway operations, not around a clean technology diagram. The target is not simply a future FRMCS network. The target is a controlled transition in which communications continue to behave in ways operators understand and can trust.

Preserve GSM-R continuity while proving FRMCS

The safest migration posture is to protect the operational integrity of GSM-R while FRMCS is introduced alongside it. GSM-R is not just an old network waiting to be switched off. Until decommissioning, it remains part of the live safety and operational environment. It needs a maintenance plan, lifecycle support, spare capacity, interference management and operational discipline all the way to retirement. Existing GSM-R operations show why continuity requires active management. Service levels can be affected by public mobile interference, vegetation growth and new buildings near the railway. Operators therefore need to monitor cab-radio behaviour, identify weak locations and plan network changes before service quality is affected. FRMCS migration does not remove that work. It makes it more important. Radio planning is one important part of this. Using 1900 MHz, the n101 band, for FRMCS as an overlay can help avoid early disruption to the established 900 MHz GSM-R environment. Rather than forcing immediate change into the GSM-R radio domain, railways can introduce FRMCS in parallel, validate performance, test coverage and build confidence before shifting critical services at scale. But the principle is broader than spectrum. Coexistence also requires clean interworking between GSM-R and FRMCS, clear treatment of mission-critical voice and data services, and procedures for how traffic, incidents and failures are handled across both generations. MCX communications cannot be treated as a later application detail. They are part of the coexistence problem from the start, because operational users will judge the migration

by whether communications continue to work naturally under real railway conditions.

Mixed fleets make interfaces decisive

Onboard migration will rarely be uniform. Operators will need to manage GSM-Ronly stock, FRMCS-capable stock and transitional dual-mode configurations at the same time. That creates practical questions: which services are available to which trains, how onboard systems select bearers, how applications are isolated from transport changes, how failures are reported, and how the driver and control centre experience remains consistent. This is where disciplined interface design matters. A mixed environment can be safe and manageable if service boundaries are clear, onboard integration is predictable and operational behaviour is tested before it is relied upon. It becomes risky when the railway depends on assumptions hidden inside equipment, applications or supplier domains. FRMCS should simplify the future railway communications environment. During migration, however, it adds another layer of complexity. Good coexistence design makes that complexity visible, bounded and governable.

Bearer independence needs operational discipline

Bearer independence is one of the most important concepts in FRMCS. Separating railway services from the underlying transport gives operators flexibility. Services can be designed to work across different bearers rather than being tied to one radio technology. That flexibility is valuable, but it is not enough by itself. Railway operators need to know how services behave when bearers change, when one path is degraded, when coverage is uneven, when a train crosses an operational boundary or when fallback is required. Priority, pre-emption, quality of service, fault isolation and recovery procedures must be defined in railway terms, not only network terms. The promise of bearer independence is that services can continue as the transport environment evolves. The proof comes when operations teams can observe, test and manage that behaviour with confidence.

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Coexistence must be observable

A coexistence architecture cannot be a black box. During migration, railways need visibility across GSM-R and FRMCS domains. They need to understand where a service is running, what bearer it is using, whether performance is within operational tolerance, and which organisation is accountable when something does not behave as expected. Communication failures rarely end with a technical outage. A recent driver-signaller radio fault caused widespread disruption across a European railway network. Delays and cancellations continued after the fault was resolved while railway operations recovered. Coexistence architecture must account for that operational tail. Migration failures may appear as intermittent service behaviour, unclear degradation, inconsistent onboard performance, delayed fault isolation or confusion between operational and technical teams. The more mixed the environment becomes, the more important it is to have observability, event correlation, tested fallback paths and clear operational ownership. Seamless communications should not mean invisible communications. For a railway, seamless means predictable, monitored and supportable.

GSM-R experience is a migration asset

Decades of GSM-R experience are a migration asset. They show how railway coverage behaves in tunnels and cuttings. Stations and depots bring different constraints. They also carry lessons from border crossings, interference events and maintenance windows. Cooperation among infrastructure managers, railway undertakings and suppliers turns those lessons into better-informed migration decisions. That knowledge matters because FRMCS will be deployed into railway reality, rather than an abstract standards environment. Standards provide the framework. Field experience shows where the operational risks are likely to appear. Railways that carry GSM-R lessons forward can avoid having to relearn them during live migration.

Trust coexistence before cutover

FRMCS is the future of railway communications, but it’s not enough to trust FRMCS in isolation. Before the final cutover, railways need to trust coexistence: GSM-R and FRMCS operating side by side, with services moving predictably across the transition while railway operations continue without uncertainty.

That trust has to be designed. It depends on spectrum choices that avoid unnecessary disruption, maintenance plans that carry GSM-R safely to retirement, interfaces that support mixed fleets, service models that include MCX from the start, and operating procedures that make the dual environment visible and manageable. The cutover will come later. Before then, coexistence is the railway communications system operators have to run.

KARSTEN OBERLE is responsible for expanding Nokia’s business in the railway sector in Europe with a current focus on the future of rail communication (e.g. FRMCS, 5G), cybersecurity for railways and IP & Optics transport networks for railways. This includes building and managing sales programmes, steering of business development activities and guiding sales and marketing teams on customer engagements and events.

INTERVIEW

James Bain

Johnathan Astbury

Global Chief Operating Officer, Strategic Solutions & Services at Magellan

Chief Executive Officer, Transport & Mobility, International, at Magellan

Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to James Bain and Johnathan Astbury of Magellan about what the Worldline-to-Magellan acquisition means for UK rail’s technology backbone, from Great British Railways and the modernisation of LENNON to data sharing, AI, and the industry’s slow march towards genuinely multimodal travel SSH: You have seen this business from the inside for decades and chaired the Rail Supply Group through a period of significant structural change, what does the Magellan acquisition mean for the UK rail supply chain, and does European ownership of critical rail technology infrastructure give you any pause? JB: Our acquisition by Magellan brings together technology and consulting capabilities. The outcome of this brings accelerated innovation driving value lead initiatives for the customers of the railway both people and freight. With regards to European ownership we see the opportunity for acceleration, particularly in the export space to share our UK capability into the transformations that are happening in the European rail landscape.

technology is harder than it should be. The open collaboration with consulting and technology companies like Magellan will accelerate benefits for the customers and taxpayers. SSH: MeTS has been embedded in UK rail for over forty years, from LENNON to ticketing to revenue allocation. Is there a risk that acquisitions of this kind disrupt continuity in systems the industry depends on, and what safeguards should the industry expect? JB: There is zero risk. In fact, it will be the complete opposite, the acquisition by Magellan moves our business from inside a global payment company into a business that is directly strategically aligned to our ambition.

SSH: The press release positions Magellan as a potential strategic partner to Great British Railways as it takes shape, what does the industry actually need from a partner of this kind right now, and where do you see the gaps?

SSH: The Rail Supply Group spent considerable energy during your tenure on data sharing and mobility as a service. How far has the industry actually travelled on that journey, and what is still holding it back?

JB: The biggest gap is the lack of a clear technology strategy at the heart of Great British Railways (GBR). We have proposed a variation to the Railways Bill to bring a technology strategy into the heart of the GBR operating model and long-term plan in the same way rolling stock has been addressed. Due to the historic operating model of the railway the technology landscape is fragmented, disjointed and lacks efficiency, meaning that taking the productivity opportunities available from

JB: Sadly, not far enough in my view. We implemented the Rail Data Marketplace with funding from the Rail Sector Deal, this initiative has provided the industry with the technology backbone to open data. We have partnered with the West of England Combined Authority to deliver their mobility as a service proposition but again traction is slow. The biggest challenge in delivering true mobility as a service is to remove the silos and ivory towers which lead to the fragmentation we see across multiple

modes. The Department for Transport is in the position to be able to regulate across the modes to drive collaboration. Time is ticking. SSH: GBR represents the most significant structural reform to the railway in a generation. From your vantage point across both the operator and supply side, what does the supply chain most need to do differently to make that transition a success? JB: From my perspective, it is critical the supply chain becomes more open-minded. The majority of the companies in the supply chain are private sector, with that comes the risk and reward of strategy execution. Part of this dynamic demands that competition is kept but flexibility and collaboration are key to delivering benefits. For example, the obsession with ‘work pipeline visibility’ clouds the primary driver of the private sector which is industrial innovation and not just pilots. There is no such thing as a free lunch in the private sector and expecting a 100 per cent guarantee of future business is not healthy as it stifles progress. SSH: There is a lot of talk about AI in rail at the moment. Where do you think it will make a genuine difference in the next five years, and where is it still more aspiration than reality? JB: AI is not magic, it is a technology that allows acceleration of invention, innovation and productivity. Just in the same way the steam engine was 200 years ago when it was bolted to a wagon on rails! The fundamental challenge to benefiting from AI is creating

INTERVIEW

consistent, structured and foundational data. From there, the application of AI on both the customer and operational sides of the industry will drive benefits. My personal view is that delivering the time promise of travel is what rail does; the customer expectation is that this is delivered. The power of AI to plan, re-plan and manage through disruption the service pattern and timetables will have many consequential benefits including increase in on time and right time, improvement in customer information during disruption and reduction in maintenance costs both infrastructure and rolling stock to name a few.

By integrating consulting and end-toend technology execution under one roof, we eliminate that hand-off. When we sit down with Network Rail, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), or TOCs (Train Operating Companies), our strategy teams work sideby-side with the systems engineers who actually run the infrastructure. The strategy is grounded in real-world technical viability from day one, and the technical delivery is strictly accountable to the strategic outcome.

SSH: You have led MeTS through the LENNON modernisation programme and a period of profound change in how passengers pay for and experience rail travel. What does becoming part of Magellan actually change in day-today terms for the UK rail clients you work with?

JA: We are certainly closer than we were five years ago, but if we are being completely honest, the industry is still in a transitional state. We have fantastic pockets of realtime visibility, but we are not yet a fully realised, dynamic, demand-led network which is exactly the thing we are delivering for RDG as part of the latest LENNON transformation. The barriers aren’t actually technological; they are structural and cultural. Historically, data has been treated as a commercial weapon or a tightly guarded asset rather than an industry-wide utility. To run a truly demand-led model, data must flow seamlessly between track, train, retail, and third parties.

JA: In day-to-day operational terms, the short answer is stability and continuity. The teams, engineers, and experts who manage all our clients’ critical systems are the exact same individuals doing so today. What does change is our scale of capability. Under Worldline, MeTS was part of a broader payments-centric group. By joining Magellan, we are now embedded inside a massive, dedicated digital transformation and consulting business, meaning for our UK rail clients we can instantly broaden the conversation. As an example, if an operator is looking at a legacy ticketing challenge, we aren’t just looking at it through a payment processing lens anymore, we can now bring Magellan’s deep capabilities in cybersecurity, cloud-native migration, and operational consulting directly into the room. SSH: The acquisition brings together consulting and technology in a single entity. In your experience of working with Network Rail, the RDG and train operators, where does the gap between strategic advice and technical execution most often cause problems, and does this model close it? JA: The traditional industry model is highly fragmented: a tier-one consulting firm spends six months writing a beautifully presented strategy document on “the future of passenger retail,” and then hands a 300-page PDF over to a technology vendor to build it which is where sometimes things fall apart. The gap opens because strategic advice frequently lacks a realistic understanding of technical debt and legacy architecture, while technical delivery can lose sight of the overarching commercial and passenger-experience goals. You end up with prolonged timelines, projects that go over budget and systems that don’t quite deliver what the business actually asked for.

SSH: Rail is in the middle of a transition to a genuinely demand-led, data-driven model. How close are we really to that, and what are the remaining barriers?

SSH: Fragmentation has been a persistent theme in UK rail, whether in ticketing, data, or passenger information. Has the industry made meaningful progress, or are we still essentially managing a patchwork of legacy systems with new interfaces on top? JA: There has been progress, particularly with the industry’s push toward data democratisation, open APIs, and more unified retailing standards. However, a significant portion of the ecosystem still operates as a ‘patchwork of legacy systems with new interfaces on top’. Building beautiful, modern user interfaces (UIs) on top of 30-year-old legacy databases is a temporary fix, not a strategy. It creates a fragile environment where a minor glitch deep in a legacy backend can cascade and break an entire suite of modern customerfacing apps. The real shift happening now, and where the modernisation of core infrastructure like LENNON comes into play, is about systematically replacing or migrating that core patchwork into cloud-native, unified platforms. We are fixing the foundations of the house, not just repainting the front door! SSH: The modernised LENNON system is one of the most significant infrastructure projects in UK rail technology. What has the experience of delivering that taught you about how the industry commissions and manages large-scale technology programmes?

JA: Managing and modernising LENNON, which processes roughly £12 billion in UK rail revenue annually, provides an invaluable lesson in scale, resilience, and industry collaboration. Running this critical platform for the past two decades and now taking it into its second transformation, we have learned a lot about large-scale rail technology! Big-Bang isn’t an Option: You cannot take a system that settles the entire industry’s revenue offline for a long weekend to do a massive software update. Modernisation must be treated like open-heart surgery while the patient is running a marathon. It requires an incremental, modular, and highly risk-mitigated approach. Collaboration is Key: A project of this scale succeeds or fails based on industry alignment. You have to bring the RDG, DfT, and individual operators along on the journey early, ensuring their unique requirements are baked into the core architecture. Outcomes not Specs: Historically, the industry has commissioned technology by writing rigidly detailed requirement specifications that are obsolete by the time the contract is signed. The transition of LENNON is an agile, collaborative approach focused on clear outcomes – scalability, realtime settlement, and cloud resilience. SSH: Passengers increasingly experience rail as part of a wider multimodal journey rather than a standalone product. How well is the UK rail industry set up to compete in that environment, and what needs to change? JA: Right now, the UK rail industry is somewhat isolated from the wider multimodal ecosystem. It functions brilliantly as a standalone spine of longdistance transport, but the moment a passenger tries to link a rail journey smoothly with an e-scooter, a local bus network, a light-rail system, or a micromobility option, the experience becomes clunky and disjointed. We have to continue the move to a new world more focused on customer and consumer choice, incorporating speed, time, cost, safety, comfort and the environment. I think to help this the industry needs to open up its infrastructure to easily allow third-party transport providers to bundle rail into an all-in-one regional subscription or journey fare. The backend clearing houses must be fast and flexible enough to split a single customer payment across a train operator, a municipal bus company, and a bike-share platform instantly. There is a lot of competition in rail, but if we look at our industry as one our main competitor is the private car. Rail has to position itself as the backbone of an integrated journey, the work at the West of England Combined Authority is a great example of this.

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Railway Pit vs Lifting Jacks There’s a long-running debate in the rail maintenance industry. Which is the better option for your workshop: a railway inspection pit, or a set of railway lifting jacks?

he honest answer is that there’s no single solution that works for every depot. The right choice depends on your space, your budget, your throughput requirements, and your long-term plans. But by understanding the strengths and limitations of each, you can make a more confident decision. Here’s what you need to know.

construction work happens away from your depot, which helps to minimise disruption and keeps your workshop operational for as long as possible during the process. Railway lifting jacks require no groundworks or structural changes at all. They arrive ready to use, and after setup and operator training, they can be put to work straight away. For depots that can’t afford downtime or don’t have the space for groundworks, this is a significant advantage.

The core difference

A railway inspection pit is a fixed, permanent installation built into the floor of your depot. Trains pass over it, giving engineers direct access to the undercarriage without any lifting required. Railway lifting jacks, by contrast, are mobile columns that raise a train off the track. They can be positioned where needed, used when required, and stored away when not in use. Both are proven solutions used by depots across the UK. The question is which one suits your operation.

Cost

Upfront, a railway pit typically costs more than a basic set of lifting jacks. The installation involves groundworks, a site survey, and some disruption to your schedule during the build. That said, the comparison isn’t always straightforward. Totalkare’s lifting jacks can be supplied in sets of up to 128 columns, meaning a large-scale jack configuration could match or exceed the cost of a pit installation. The scale of your operation matters. Where a pit tends to win over the long term is in ongoing costs. Once it’s in the ground, a well-built railway inspection pit requires very little maintenance. Repairs 46

Maintenance

are rare, spare parts costs are minimal, and there are no scheduled service visits to plan for. Lifting jacks, on the other hand, require regular servicing, typically every six months. With more moving parts and a more complex mechanism, you’ll also expect to budget for repairs and replacement parts over the years. If you’re thinking long term and you’re settled in your premises, a pit can be the more cost-effective choice across its lifetime. If you need flexibility or lower upfront spend, jacks offer a practical entry point.

Installation

Installing a railway inspection pit is a significant project. It requires groundworks, structural changes to your depot floor, and a period of downtime while the work is carried out. But it doesn’t have to be as disruptive as it sounds. Totalkare’s railway inspection pits are prefabricated off-site before they’re delivered and installed. The bulk of the

Once installed, a railway pit is built to last. With the right construction and materials, it can serve your depot for decades with minimal intervention. There’s no mechanical lifting system to service, no hydraulics to check, and no scheduled maintenance visits to book. Lifting jacks need more attention. Sixmonthly service visits are standard, and as the equipment ages, repairs and parts replacements become a fact of life. These costs are manageable, but they add up over time and need to be factored into your operational budget.

Throughput

For high-volume depots, throughput is often the deciding factor. A railway inspection pit has a clear advantage here. There’s no setup time with a pit. Trains move in, engineers are ready, and work begins immediately. No columns to position, no safety checks before lifting, no waiting for the train to be raised and lowered again. For a busy depot processing rolling stock from opening to close, that saved time adds up to a meaningful difference in daily output.

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There’s also a productivity benefit that’s easy to overlook: with a pit, engineers can service both the top and underside of a train at the same time. That can effectively halve service times for certain jobs, meaning more trains processed in a working day. Lifting jacks, while highly capable, do involve setup time for each use. Columns need to be positioned correctly, safety checks need to be completed, and the raising and lowering process takes time. In a highthroughput environment, these are costs worth weighing carefully. That said, jacks have one throughput advantage of their own: they can lift an entire train at once, regardless of its length. A pit, by contrast, is a fixed length. Longer trains may need to be repositioned to service different sections, which adds time to certain jobs.

Space

Space is one of the most practical considerations when choosing between the two options. A railway pit is a permanent fixture. When it’s not in use, it still occupies floor space. For depots that need to use their floor for other activities or traffic routes, that can be a limitation. Lifting jacks offer more flexibility. When they’re not needed, they can be stored away,

LIFTING

SERVICING

SYNCHRONISED

Which should you choose?

Both solutions have a strong case depending on your circumstances. As a rough guide: A railway inspection pit is likely the better fit if you have high throughput demands, a settled premises and layout, low ceilings or overhead restrictions, and you’re thinking in terms of long-term cost. Railway lifting jacks may be the better option if you need flexibility and mobility, have limited upfront budget, can’t accommodate groundworks or installation downtime, or need to lift full-length trains in a single operation.

Many depots operate both. Pits for dayto-day, high-volume servicing. Jacks for specific tasks that require the train to be lifted clear of the track.

Talk to the experts

Totalkare supplies and installs both railway inspection pits and railway lifting jacks. The company has worked with depots across the UK and understand that no two workshops have exactly the same requirements. Whether you’re planning a new depot build, upgrading an existing facility, or simply exploring your options, Totalkare’s team can help by offering site surveys, custom designs, and guidance on the right solution for your operation. Get in touch with one of Totalkare’s workshop specialists to start the conversation.

Tel: 0121 585 2724 Email: sales@totalkare.co.uk Visit: www.totalkare.co.uk

TRAINING

MOBILE RAIL LIFTING JACKS HEAVY DUTY

freeing up floor space for other work. Their mobile design also means they can be used in different areas of a depot rather than being fixed to one spot. However, there’s one important condition: ceiling height. Lifting jacks require enough vertical clearance for both the height of the rolling stock and the height of the lifting operation. In depots with low ceilings or overhead obstructions, this can make jacks impractical or even impossible to use safely. A railway inspection pit has no such requirement. Work takes place at floor level, with engineers working below the train rather than lifting it upward. For workshops with height restrictions, this can make a pit the only viable option.

RAIL INSPECTION PITS INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY SAFE QUALITY LIGHTING

RELIABLE

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Scheidt & Bachmann Extend Greater Anglia Partnership A new five-year agreement extends a partnership of more than two decades, supporting continued innovation, service reliability and future-ready rail ticketing across the Greater Anglia network

Malcolm Cotter, Head of Retail Systems at Greater Anglia, added: “Scheidt & Bachmann has been a trusted partner for more than two decades and has played an important role in supporting our retailing strategy. Together, we have introduced several innovative developments that have improved operational performance and the customer experience. We look forward to continuing this successful partnership over the coming years.”

A strong foundation for the next five years

cheidt & Bachmann Fare Collection Systems and Greater Anglia have signed a new fiveyear agreement, effective 1 July 2026, further strengthening a partnership that has spanned more than two decades and continues to support innovation in rail ticketing across the UK. Greater Anglia has been a Scheidt & Bachmann customer since 2002, when the first ticket vending machines were installed at Colchester station in December of that year. Since then, the partnership has continued to evolve, supporting the modernisation of ticket retailing and passenger services across the Greater Anglia network.

Innovation backed by exceptional reliability

Today, Scheidt & Bachmann supports a fleet of 268 ticket vending machines, both cash and card and card only. The estate delivers consistently excellent service with device availability of more than 99.8 per cent, helping ensure reliable access to ticket purchasing for passengers throughout the region.

Over the past two decades, Greater Anglia has established itself as one of the UK rail industry’s most forwardlooking operators, frequently leading the adoption of new ticketing technologies. The operator was among the first customers to implement Scheidt & Bachmann’s new TVM Application, as well as one of the first to roll out the company’s Paper Roll Ticketing (PRT) solution across its TVM network. These solutions are just some examples of how the partnership has driven new solutions to align to the needs of the UK rail industry’s transition away from legacy ticketing technology. Ken Cameron, Managing Director UK & Ireland at Scheidt & Bachmann Fare Collection Systems, said: ‘We are delighted to extend our partnership with Greater Anglia for another five years. Over more than two decades of collaboration, Greater Anglia has consistently embraced innovation and worked closely with us to deliver industry-leading ticketing solutions. This new agreement reflects the strength of our relationship and our shared commitment to providing reliable, efficient and future-ready services for passengers.’

The new agreement provides a strong foundation for continued collaboration, enabling Greater Anglia to benefit from ongoing advancements in ticketing technology while maintaining the high levels of service reliability that passengers have come to expect.

Scheidt & Bachmann: Smart solutions for fare collection systems

Scheidt & Bachmann Fare Collection Systems is a leading provider of system solutions that make using public transport easy. In partnership with transport operators around the world, Scheidt & Bachmann is committed to making travel as pleasant and stress-free as possible for passengers. Scheidt & Bachmann combines the innovative products and services of the FareGo brand with the unique expertise of our international team. The result is reliable, intuitive, and forward-looking fare collection systems that help make sustainable mobility accessible to everyone.

Tel: 01372 230400 Email: sales@scheidt-bachmann.co.uk Visit: www.scheidt-bachmann.de/en/fare-collectionsystems/home Socials: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/scheidtbachmann-fare-collection-systems/posts/

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RIA Annual Conference 2026 Connected for Change: Shaping Tomorrow’s Railway

his November, the award-winning Railway Industry Association (RIA) Annual Conference returns to London with a new theme, a new agenda, and new ticket

options. RIA’s Annual Conference has become a key date in the UK railway industry calendar, bringing together suppliers, clients, industry leaders, influencers, international guests and policy makers for two days of insights and networking. This year’s event, on 4 to 5 November, promises to be no exception, with influential speakers, innovative exhibitors, and flexible new ticketing options to choose from. And, with just one month to go until the conference opens its doors, there is still time to book a ticket or apply to exhibit.

Agenda-setting speakers, prime networking connections, unmissable exhibitors

Themed ‘Connected for Change: Shaping Tomorrow’s Railway’ and held in London, RIA Annual Conference 2026 will give attendees the chance to hear from a range of high-profile speakers. These include Mark Wild OBE, HS2 Ltd CEO, Network Rail CEO Jeremy Westlake, DfT Operator CEO, Alex Hynes, Julia Prescot CBE, NISTA Chair, Steve White, South Eastern Railway MD, and the designate MD for the Integrated

Greater Thameslink Railway, Claire Mann, Transport for London COO, and Interim ORR CEO Feras Alshaker, who will all take the stage during the two-day event. They will be joined by leading UK politicians – Rail Minister Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill CBE and Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden MP. Those interested in learning more about devolution and regional growth can attend a dedicated Nations & Regions discussion, featuring the Mayors of South Yorkshire Oliver Coppard, and East Midlands Claire Ward, as well as Director of Rail Delivery Transport Scotland Graeme Cook. On day two, delegates can hear from Transport Infrastructure Ireland CEO Lorcan O’Connor, Translink Group CEO Gerard Carlin and CEO National Transport Authority Anne Shaw in the Ireland panel discussion. During the Evening Dinner keynote, delegates will hear from former Joint Intelligence Committee Chair & Minister for Security, the Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones DCMG, as she discusses cyber security and infrastructure. Delegates will also have the chance to attend sessions on key industry issues, from rail reform and devolution to private and third-party forms of funding, and overseas opportunities. And, in the exhibition space, they will discover innovative products and solutions from across the rail supply chain. For exhibitors the conference represents a valuable opportunity to meet with clients and forge new connections. Exhibition Spotlight sessions give these suppliers the chance to stand out, presenting their products and services to industry delegates during one of the conference’s regular networking breaks.

A more flexible way to attend

This year, industry players looking to attend the event can benefit from a broader ticketing range than previous years, with new affordably priced packages available to suit everyone’s budget and diary. Whether looking to stay for the full two-day conference and dinner, use their two-day ticket flexibly with a colleague, or visit with a one-day pass, delegates can now find a ticketing option to suit their needs. SMEs can also take advantage of special reduced prices. Darren Caplan, Chief Executive of RIA, said: ‘With the railway entering a period of significant change, it is more important than ever that the industry comes together to debate how we deliver the best possible railway for passengers, freight customers and the economy. ‘RIA’s Annual Conference always brings together leading decision-makers and influencers from across the UK and internationally, and this year is no different, with an exceptional line-up of speakers covering everything from rail reform and devolution to investment, innovation and overseas opportunities. ‘With more flexible and affordable ways to attend this year too, we want as many organisations as possible, whatever their size and budget, to join us on 4 to 5 November, and – as per the theme of the conference – make new connections and help shape tomorrow’s railway.’ Those interested in attending as delegates or exhibiting at the RIA Annual Conference 2026 should contact the RIA Events team at events@riagb.org.uk and 020 7201 0777. Please do get in touch!

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When the Backup Fails Chris Connors, Project Sales Director, DTGen on the real cost of getting standby power wrong

A large-scale standby generating set awaiting installation. The specification, sizing and transfer arrangements determined at this stage define whether backup power performs when called on.

uring August, two separate power failures knocked out two separate railway control centres and brought significant parts of the UK rail network to a standstill. The first, a 90-second mains outage in Manchester on 6 August, took out Network Rail’s Rail Operating Centre and cascaded across six train operators. It’s been reported that the backup generator failed to start immediately, signals defaulted to red, and the resulting disruption ran well into the following day. The second incident, on 22 August, hit CrossCountry’s only working control room at its Birmingham headquarters. A localised power cut affecting fewer than 90 customers in the area left the operator without power for almost 36 hours, with nearly an entire day’s services cancelled. Reports suggest there was no ready backup location and no working standby power on site. Two incidents, two different operators, but the same underlying question: when the mains failed, why didn’t the backup do its job? I’ve spent more than 25 years in the power generation sector, much of it working on critical infrastructure projects, including rail. While I don’t know the specifics of either site, the pattern these incidents reveal is one I’ve seen repeatedly, and it comes down to a set of decisions that are often made badly, or not made at all.

The seconds that matter most

A standby generator isn’t running continuously. When the mains drops, there is always a short break while the set starts, comes up to speed and takes the load. That happens within seconds, but it isn’t instantaneous. For many applications, a few seconds of latent supply doesn’t matter. But for

safety-critical signalling, it can be the difference between riding out a disturbance and triggering a full shutdown. When a signalling system loses certainty about where trains are, the correct response is to stop everything. That’s the system doing exactly what it should. But it means the resilience of the power supply behind signalling carries an importance it wouldn’t in most other settings. This is where specification decisions made at the design stage become critical. For any load where even a few seconds of interruption is unacceptable, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) should sit between the mains and the equipment. A UPS is essentially a fast-acting battery system that holds the critical load the instant the mains drops, bridging the gap while the generator starts and takes over. Data centres invest heavily in this protection because they operate to a zero-downtime standard. Safety-critical railway signalling belongs in exactly the same category of thinking. Equally important is what happens once the generator is running. A set can be up to speed and ready to deliver power, but if the automatic transfer switch fails to complete the changeover from mains to generator, the site stays dark. The transfer switch monitors

An engineer inspects a standby generator’s control panel. Faults in control systems and transfer switches are among the most common reasons backup power fails to deliver.

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the incoming supply, signals the generator to start, breaks the connection to the failed mains and makes the connection to the generator. If this mechanism fails, through a fault or because it has never been properly tested under real conditions, the generator runs without supplying anything. From the outside it looks like the generator has failed, but in reality, the breakdown is a failed transfer. These are perhaps two of the most common reasons backup systems fail to perform when called on.

The infrastructure behind the infrastructure

A DTGen engineer at the company’s facility. Hands-on maintenance and investigative testing remain essential to proving generator readiness between service visits.

An engineer working between generating sets during routine maintenance. The cables, connections and mechanical systems behind a generator need the same attention as the set itself.

A generator is only ever as reliable as the infrastructure around it. The cables, connections, fuel system, tank integrity, starter batteries, coolant and control systems all need to be maintained, monitored and protected. However capable a generating set, neglecting any part of this chain introduces risk. Fuel is a good example. Diesel that has been sitting in a tank for months can degrade, particularly if water ingress has occurred. Starter batteries lose charge over time, and control systems can develop faults that only show up when the set is asked to run under genuine load. None of these are dramatic failures; they’re the slow erosion of plant readiness that only becomes visible when the set is required to perform. The CrossCountry incident raises a more fundamental point. If reports are accurate that there was no working standby power at the operator’s only control room, the issue isn’t a failed generator. It’s the absence of one. What makes the CrossCountry case particularly instructive is the reported detail. The wider area lost power for a matter of hours, with most customers restored the same evening. But a fault within the building itself meant the operator’s headquarters stayed dark for almost 36 hours. The vulnerability wasn’t just the grid but inside the building; a reminder that internal electrical infrastructure needs the same level of scrutiny as the external supply that feeds it.

Testing: where most organisations fall short

An engineer carrying out close inspection work on a generating set. Remote monitoring can flag developing faults, but it doesn’t replace the hands-on attention that keeps standby power ready.

Specification tends to get proper attention at the design stage. This means the generator rating, the coverage, and the criticality of the transfer time. These are usually addressed carefully up front. The problems tend to arrive later, once a set is commissioned, particularly if the maintenance routine starts to slip. A weekly visual start-up, checking for leaks and obstructions, is valuable. But far fewer organisations run the test that actually proves readiness: a monthly transfer of the full site load to the generator, simulating a genuine mains failure. Fewer still carry out a longer annual full-load test to confirm the set still meets its rated output.

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This distinction is vital, because a diesel engine that only ever runs off-load or lightly loaded can begin to wet-stack. This is where unburnt fuel collects in the exhaust system and, over time, undermines reliability. A generator that starts cleanly on a visual check could still fail under real load. The only way to prove it works is to make it work. Remote monitoring does help catch developing faults between service visits, but it doesn’t replace investigative, on-site maintenance. A set that looks healthy on a dashboard can still need hands-on attention to its mechanical and electrical systems to keep it ready.

Calculating the true cost of a power shutdown

In both the Manchester and Birmingham incidents, the initial power loss was measured in seconds or, in CrossCountry’s case, hours. But the operational disruption lasted far longer. The Manchester outage displaced trains and crews across six operators and the effects ran into the following day. CrossCountry lost nearly an entire day of services and as a result is now conducting a review of its business continuity arrangements. This is the pattern that critical infrastructure operators need to understand

clearly. The direct outage is rarely the main event, as the real cost sits in the recovery. Even a very short interruption can displace complex, interdependent operations and trigger days of knock-on disruption where the commercial, operational and reputational damage far outweighs the seconds of power lost. For organisations running control centres, communications hubs, data centres, hospitals or manufacturing facilities, the resilience of standby provision is often only proven the day it’s called on. By then, the specification, the maintenance, the testing and the transfer systems have either been done properly or they haven’t. There’s no middle ground. The RMT has already called for a rootand-branch review of railway control centres. Network Rail has commissioned an independent review of the Manchester incident, and CrossCountry has committed to examining its protection against external power outages. These are the right responses. Any operation that depends on uninterrupted power, and whose backup arrangements haven’t been specified, tested and maintained to the standard the risk demands, is carrying a vulnerability that only needs one bad moment to expose.

The value of backup power is measured in the interruption it prevents, and August has been a sharp reminder of what happens when it doesn’t.

Tel: 0141 956 7764 Email: sales@dtgen.co.uk Visit: www.dtgen.co.uk CHRIS CONNORS is Project Sales Director at DTGen and has worked in the power generation sector for more than 25 years, holding senior technical sales roles with national and international scope. His project experience spans multi-megawatt, high-voltage generator installations across the rail, finance and data centre markets. He is based in the Midlands and leads DTGen’s business development across England and Wales.

RELIABLE POWER. EVERY SIGNAL. EVERY TIME. Mission-critical backup power for rail infrastructure. No downtime. No compromise. Delivering for Network Rail. PADS approved, framework supplier. Speak to our rail power experts today: DTGen is part of DCC Energy

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Rail Professional Cubimac Advert.pdf

10/09/2026

14:54

Prefilled gabions for free-draining retaining walls Maccaferri CubiMac’s bring all the benefits of gabions except they are delivered to site ready for immediate installation! Buttressing / shoring unstable areas Filling scour holes in adjacent watercourses Retaining walls – settlement tolerant Rapid to install – more wall in fewer possessions

Why Maccaferri: Manufactured and filled by us, ready for use Integral lifting straps Unique PoliMac® coating for longer design life than traditional gabions Better chemical, UV & abrasion resistance

BBA Certified gabion mesh units Free draining Modular – better on-the-job problem solving

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Off-site filling, On-site Speed CubiMac is changing the earthworks conversation around embankment washout, slope slumping and watercourse scour

CubiMac prefilled gabion – detail. Note integral lifting straps.

hese are known, recurring line items on every renewals and enhancements programme, and ones that are only getting more expensive as weather patterns and possession pressure both tighten. What has shifted is how quickly a gabion solution can actually be deployed once a defect is identified. That’s the gap CubiMac, Maccaferri’s pre-filled gabion system, was built to close.

Where it earns its keep

Embankment washout. Saturated fill and degraded drainage don’t wait for a convenient possession. CubiMac units arrive filled, pre-consolidated and fitted with lifting straps, so a toe repair or retaining structure goes from empty track

to finished asset in the time it takes to crane and connect, not the time it takes to also mobilise plant for on-site filling. Slope slumping adjacent to the track. Where movement is ongoing rather than catastrophic, the value is in getting a durable, settlement-tolerant structure in without extending the possession to accommodate filling and compaction work that’s normally the slowest part of the job. Scour at adjacent watercourses. River bank and abutment repairs are often the least accessible, least safe sites to be repaired. Filling off-site strips most of the plant and labour out of the channel itself which is a meaningful reduction in exposure to risk as well as programme time.

The unit itself

CubiMac uses a super-heavy-grade hexagonal double-twist mesh, purposebuilt for the pre-filled application to resist deformation in lifting and transport, with bracing wires keeping units square once filled. Mechanical properties exceed BS EN 10223-3. They are coated with Class

Maccaferri in the UK

Maccaferri’s UK operation has been supplying gabion, rockfall protection, embankment stabilisation and soil reinforcement systems into the rail sector for decades. The Airdrie–Bathgate reopening saw over 1,800m² of its gabions installed around signal gantries where access was too tight for other solutions; the Borders Railway job remains one of the largest single gabion orders placed in the UK, with 35,000m³ supplied along the Edinburgh– Tweedbank route. The proposition hasn’t changed since: free-draining, tolerant of differential settlement, and proven over a design life measured in decades rather than years. What CubiMac changes is the construction method sitting underneath that same material.

CubiMac installation using a lifting frame.

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FlexMac Emergency works unit being deployed.

FlexMac unit filled with on-site materials.

A GalMac to BS EN 10244-2 and durable PoliMac sheathing to cope with aggressive or permanently wet ground. This is relevant for anything sitting at an embankment toe or in a watercourse. Standard sizes are 1x1x1m, 2x1x1m and 2x1x0.5m, nominal filled weights two to four tonnes depending on fill density, and CAD models are available as BBA-assured BIM objects via Bimstore. At Luss, restricted access ruled out conventional plant movements; CubiMac units were craned in to build in less than a day a 28-metre, 1.5-metre-high wall with minimal footprint on site, the kind of constrained brief that comes up on rail earthworks more often than not. CubiMac doesn’t replace the design and investigation work behind a gabion specification. It replaces the slowest, most exposed part of building one. 58

When there’s no time to source fill: FlexMac DT

CubiMac’s speed comes from filling off-site before the unit ever reaches the railway. FlexMac DT solves a different version of the same problem: what to do when a defect can’t wait for any material to be sourced and delivered at all. FlexMac DT is a folded, multicellular double-twist mesh unit reinforced with vertical steel bars and lined internally with geotextile. In an emergency scenario the lining means the units can be filled with whatever’s on hand, be it site-won ballast, spoil from an adjacent dig, sand, or aggregate stockpiled nearby, without the geotextile needing to match a particular grading. Units arrive folded flat, are opened by two or three people with no special plant or trained labour required, filled in place,

and pinned together to form a continuous barrier. Where FlexMac has previously been deployed for river and coastal flood defence, the same logic applies directly to trackside emergency response: a washout, breach or rapidly developing scour event where the priority is getting a structure up before the next tide or rainfall peak, using whatever material is already available on or near the possession, rather than waiting on a delivery. It’s also not necessarily a throwaway measure. Where the emergency intervention needs to become a permanent fix, FlexMac DT can be covered and re-vegetated in place; where it doesn’t, units can be emptied, folded down and stored for the next event. For an emergency response toolkit — held either by Maccaferri or stocked by a maintainer for rapid callout — that combination of local-fill flexibility and reusability is arguably more relevant to rail than the flood-defence and disasterresponse markets FlexMac was originally built for.

Visit: www.maccaferri.com/uk

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All about people...

people working in public transport

Help and support for you, your live-in partner and dependent children during times of need

A comprehensive range of health, welfare and financial support for less than 20p per day.

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Support in Challenging Conditions Rail work is often delivered in demanding environments, from drainage and earthworks to tree and vegetation management, track renewals, flood mitigation and coastal protection

any projects take place where weather, access and ground conditions can make day-today delivery more complex. While the focus is rightly on the infrastructure being maintained or improved, the needs of the people delivering the work should not be overlooked. Temporary facilities play a practical role in supporting rail teams on site.

Weather affects more than the infrastructure

Heavy rainfall, high winds, heat, snow, ice and coastal exposure can all affect the rail

network. They can also affect the workforce. Teams working in wet conditions need suitable welfare and drying space. Those working in remote or exposed areas need facilities close enough to support the working day. Supervisors and engineers may need office space to coordinate activity, manage documentation and brief teams. Tools, PPE and materials need to be kept secure and accessible. The right facilities can help create a more organised and comfortable working environment, even when the site itself is challenging.

Different works, different requirements

Rail projects do not all follow the same pattern. A tree and vegetation management team may move across several locations. A drainage scheme may require facilities close to a flood-prone section of track. An earthworks project may need a fixed compound for a longer programme. A coastal protection scheme may need robust facilities in an exposed environment. This is why temporary accommodation should be shaped around the work being delivered. For some projects, a compact setup may be enough. For others, a wider compound with welfare, offices, storage and drying space may be needed.

Planned and reactive demands

Much of the rail industry works to planned programmes, with activity scheduled around access, possessions and project milestones. However, weather-related incidents can also create urgent requirements. Flooding, landslips, fallen trees, storm damage or infrastructure issues may lead to teams being deployed quickly to support recovery or repair works. Both planned and reactive works need practical site support. Planned programmes need dependable facilities that can support longer-term delivery. Reactive works need flexible facilities that help teams get established when time and access are under pressure.

Practical facilities support practical delivery

Temporary facilities are not just a compliance requirement. They help support the everyday working rhythm of a site. Welfare units give teams somewhere to take breaks and manage basic needs. Drying rooms support those working in wet or muddy environments. Storage units keep equipment protected and close to the work area. Offices provide space for coordination and communication. Power, access, security and furniture help make the setup usable. When these elements are considered together, they can help make the site easier to manage.

The people behind rail resilience

Rail resilience depends on investment, engineering expertise and strong delivery. It also depends on the people working on site, often in difficult environments. For the contractors delivering these works, temporary accommodation and site facilities are part of the practical support structure behind the project. Wernick Hire works with rail contractors across the UK to provide welfare units, site offices, storage, drying rooms, power and wider site setup services. As the rail industry continues to adapt to changing weather and environmental pressures, supporting the people delivering that work will remain essential.

Tel: 0800 51 55 55 Email: contact.hire@wernick.co.uk Visit: www.wernick.co.uk

PEOPLE

AtkinsRéalis appoints Managing Director of Transportation AtkinsRéalis has appointed Justin Norman as Managing Director of its Transportation business for the UK and Ireland, with immediate effect. He succeeds Colette Carroll OBE, who has been appointed Global Market Lead – Rail for AtkinsRéalis.

CILT (UK) appoints two new Vice-Presidents The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) (UK) has appointed Steven Bishop FCILT and Stephen Fidler OBE FCILT as Vice-Presidents. Bishop is a Director at Steer and Fidler is Director of Local Passenger Transport & Inclusion at the Department for Transport. They succeed outgoing VicePresidents Steve Gooding CB FCILT and Elizabeth Gilliard FCILT.

Petards appoints Chief Technical Officer Petards Joyce-Loebl Limited (PJL) has appointed David Muse as Chief Technical Officer, expanding his technical leadership across the company’s Rail and Defence activities.

HS2 appoints new Chief Programme Officer HS2 Ltd has appointed Neil Holm as Chief Programme Officer, joining from BAE Systems on 5 October. The role sits within Chief Executive Mark Wild’s reset of the project and will focus on completing civil engineering, leading the transition to systems installation and testing, and bringing the railway into operation.

Terram strengthens UK sales team with dual appointments Terram has appointed James White as Key Account Manager for geotextiles in the South of England and Adam Carlin as Key Account Manager for Rail, strengthening its commercial capability across civil engineering and rail infrastructure.

Rail Delivery Group appoints Dan Mann and Ola Ogun as co-CEOs Rail Delivery Group has appointed Dan Mann and Ola Ogun as co-CEOs, succeeding Jacqueline Starr, who leaves the role in October 2026. 62

Railway Mission welcomes new Waterloo-based Railway Chaplain Railway Mission has appointed Emmanuel Egila as its new railway chaplain supporting colleagues across the Southwest Rail network, based out of London Waterloo. He succeeds Christopher Henley, who has moved to a new chaplaincy role supporting people living with dementia on the South Coast.

Asset Management Specialists Delivering innovative solutions for every asset management challenge - no matter the scale. www.geoaccess.co.uk

Asset Inspections Access Solutions Bespoke Projects Enabling Works

Transport’s independent, confidential safety hotline. If you work in transport, your concerns about health, wellbeing and safety need to be heard. From working environment and culture, to training, welfare and equipment concerns, you can speak up safely with CIRAS. Raise a concern online, over the phone or via the app.