Unlocking value for industry in 2025 and beyond

This month, we're speaking with Helen Costello, RSSB's Director of Business Management and Performance. 

She’ll be speaking with us about the biggest hurdles rail is facing at the moment, some of the solutions that RSSB has developed to help overcome these, and the value they’re generating for industry. 

Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/strategic-business-plan-2024-29

Transcript

Host [00.16]: As we approach 2025, we're also approaching a very special milestone: 200 years since the very first steam-powered passenger and freight trains ran in the UK. 

The first two centuries of modern rail have been characterised by continual growth and development, and that's showing no sign of slowing down. In this ever-evolving landscape, we need to understand the obstacles that hinder progress and the strategies and solutions that can pave the way for success. 

So, with us today is Helen Costello, our Director of Business Management and Performance. She'll be speaking with us about the biggest hurdles rail is facing at the moment, some of the solutions that RSSB has developed to help overcome these, and the value they're generating for industry.

Hi, Helen, and thank you for joining us today.

Helen Costello [01.15]: Hi, Anna, great to be here.

Host [01.17]: We've always worked very closely with industry to determine its biggest challenges from one year to the next. So first, can you tell us more about this process? And also, what is it that industry is facing at the moment?

Helen [01.33]: Certainly. When we created our five-year strategy last year, which matches the NR CP7 period between 2024 and 2029, we really went back to the fundamentals, meaning that yes, we're very clear on what we provide to the industry, such as analysing data on safety and health, setting industry challenges, conducting research, and so forth. But we really wanted to test, are we providing the right products and services which meet the current needs, or, if you like, the challenges that facing industry at the moment?

So what this led us to was through our industry surveys and our general engagement, and Mark, our CEO, senior engagement with leaders of the industry, was to really get down to the fundamentals of the main challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. But how best we could contribute to tackling them through our products and services and what we do on a day-to-day basis.

So, although many in the industry can probably guess what they are, the following challenges that we created have been really endorsed by our membership. And they are: cost reduction; safe and satisfied customers; improving system reliability and resilience, which is really performance; adopting new technology, freight safety and growth; and value to society and sustainability.

So now, we're one year in. We're working on that 2025-2026 business plan, which is the second year of our strategy. So, we're about to go through the same again. So, a bit of a cheeky shout out for the survey that we'll be sending out to gather members' feedback, because the more members that we have telling us what their challenges are and what they would like from us, the better.

We'll also be doing our general engagement and getting out there, so if you meet anybody from RSSB, please feel free to give them feedback on what you'd like to see in the next few years from us.

Host [03.29]: Thanks. Helen. And what solutions have we at RSSB developed or released in the past year to help industry overcome these?

Helen [03.39]: I've chosen what I think are some of the most interesting and biggest contributors to the industry. 

So, in cost reduction, just in September, actually, we enabled benefits of around £12 million over five years by introducing a new type of permissible and temporary speed restriction [sign]. And that's quite exciting in terms of the benefits that that can deliver. 

In safe and satisfied customers, a little over a year ago, but it is a personal favourite of mine, so I did include it because as a passenger myself, I've got a bit of a self-interest in this, which is we did some research to set out a methodology for assessing seats for passenger comfort. I do mention this as well because as well as a personal favourite, there is more work on the pipeline to build on this piece of work.

Improving system reliability and resilience, so having worked in driver operations for a train operator, I'm very conscious of the fact that employee health and wellbeing underpin the operational performance of our industry. And it's not always about big infrastructure changes. So, I'm really proud of the launch of our long-term Health and Wellbeing Strategy that happened this year.

On to adopting new technology, I think particularly interesting for our supply chain is our work on producing guidance about the testing and validation of new technologies so that it's easier for industry to adopt innovations and for those supply chain companies to get into the industry, which can be quite traditional and hard to break into.

And then on freight safety and growth, there's absolutely lots going on, and we'll talk about that later, I think, but in March, we published research on aerodynamic risk from freight trains to identify whether and how freight train speeds above 75 mph could be accommodated. So, we've got potential benefits there really of being able to fit in more freight services seamlessly between passenger services, improved performance, and the opening of new freight rail markets. So, it's a really exciting piece of work there.

And lastly, but not least, the value to society and sustainability. Obviously, we had the big launch of the Sustainable Rail Blueprint last November, but in January, part of that project was that we completed a pilot project to create engagement materials that could build awareness of railway careers among disadvantaged young people, so that's a really interesting piece of work there.

Host [06.14]: I'd like to pick up on one or two of these in particular and really dig down into the benefits they're generating. So, let's start with a new signage you mentioned for [some] temporary and permissible speed restrictions. What are the advantages that individual organisations will see from this piece of work?

Helen [06.33]: So as well as the direct cost saving of the £12 million over five years through the temporary [and permissible] speed restriction [signs], the new signage will contribute to greater operational efficiency. So it will allow trains to accelerate when the front of the train reaches the end of the speed restriction rather than waiting for the whole train to clear. Obviously, these signs will only be used in circumstances where it's safe to do so, So, for example, where speed restriction relates to a sighting issue at passive level crossing.

Host [07.07]: What about the Health and Wellbeing Data Strategy and Dashboards? What value will industry derive from those?

Helen [07.15]: The main objective is to reduce the cost of ill-health and make meaningful improvements in employee wellbeing. And this will help industry save £45 million over five years caused by sickness and presenteeism. So, for instance, fatigue, again, from my time working for a TOC, it's a real hidden risk across rail operations. And we're supporting industry now through a driver attention and monitoring trial, which is two TOCs and a FOC. And next year, we're investigating tools for effective rostering and planning decisions.

Host [07.50]: And a slight change of subject now. How do we know all this?

Helen [07.55]: Essentially, we're the data aggregator for the industry, and we're in a much privileged position that industry entrusts us with their data. We have a core team of analytic experts who are constantly developing our capability, including AI, which is quite exciting, whilst also working with those industry experts to develop the insights which are meaningful and how they can be used to drive improved decision making and actually [be] used operationally on the ground.

Host [08.25]: Thanks, Helen. Now, you mentioned that you were working at a train operating company before coming to RSSB. So, from your experience in that environment, do you think there's any sort of 'magic formula' for addressing cost reductions and performance improvements?

Helen [08.40]: Unfortunately not! There are much greater minds than mine working on this thorny issue, but what I will say is while we go through rail reform and our new government's vision to deliver a unified and simplified rail system, I think there are operational and more tactical interventions that we can and should be employing today without having to wait for the big bang of reform.

For instance, with all the different operational interfaces, people can struggle with operational dynamic decision making, so taking learning from the emergency services and aviation industries, RSSB's delivered a simple aid to support staff in making rational decisions. This form of dynamic risk assessment is delivered through a tool we call G-FORCE, and I think this is a point: performance improvements don't always have to be big bang infrastructure projects, like I said before. Dynamic risk assessment tools can be rolled out cheaply and easily, and through its use, we can reveal procedures that are not fit for purpose or common issues that staff are facing. Also, when things go wrong, we can use the framework during operational reviews and development conversations.

I'll also add that RSSB's doing this on behalf of industry, and making it available to industry is an example of just doing this once. So, it reduces duplication of effort of different areas of the industry doing that, reduces cost, and reduces those fragmented approaches which can lead to operational outcomes that perhaps we don't want.

So, I think it's particularly vital in these operational contexts that we're able to work together in these ways.

Host [10.25]: In addition to those challenges, there's also a need to grow the freight sector -- the government target being to achieve 75% growth in rail freight by 2050. So, can you share a little about what we're doing in this space?

Helen [10.39]: Yeah, Anna, there's loads going on in this space, and we're absolutely behind the government's targets. It's all very quite exciting in this area.

So, this year we're working with freight operators to carry out a trial of the Freight Condition Maintenance Decision Support Tool analysis, which is the long title, but essentially what it will do is it will deliver a proof of concept of the tool to reduce risk on the network. We've also been working on a report identifying where and how sectional running times can be reduced to allow faster journey times for a selection of regularly used freight paths.

Host [11.18]: And finally, what are we working to deliver in 2025 to keep supplying industry with the tools and insight they need to succeed?

Helen [11.28]: Well, obviously we're still going through the stakeholder engagement just to see what industry is looking for, see what their main challenges are. But some of the things that we're pretty confident that industry will be looking to us to deliver next year is building upon PRIMA, which is our Proportionate Risk Response to Implementing Mitigating Speeds to Assets. So, that's all about rainfall and seeing how we can expand that from not just rainfall, but to wind and other elements to make that a tool that can be used across all those different scenarios. 

Coming again from the Sustainable [Rail] Blueprint, which was launched in November last year, we'll be looking at an air quality tool.

And finally, also a one-stop shop for trespass and suicide.

Host [12.15]: Thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you for listening. 

If you want to learn more about RSSB and the work we do across all aspects of the rail industry, please visit our website. 

We look forward to you joining us for the next episode. And in the meantime, save travels.