Reimagining a Technology Led Railway Through the Lens of a Technology Giant

Abstract

The Railway in Great Britain is about to undergo its most radical transformation in a generation with a strong focus on how it operates and how its many stakeholders interact with one another. This transformation coincides with the fourth industrial revolution, often referred to Industry 4.0, which also brings its own complexities and pace of change within a digital transformation. At the heart of both the Railway and Industry 4.0 transformations lies the human actor, who plays out many stakeholder roles in either direct or indirect employment within the Railway supply chain or as an end user of the service. Traditionally, the Railway has operated through its National Rail Conditions of Carriage, whereby its fundamental premise is to simply enable passengers to travel between two destinations; there is no guarantee of a seat nor the level of service you can expect to receive. What if we reimagined the National Rail Conditions of Carriage to be re-think the term passengers and re-label the term as customers? What if we reimagined the end-to-end customer process of a rail journey that doesn’t start and finish at a station platform? What if we reimagined the Railway as a technology giant with customers? This thought leadership article explores the concept of the Railway acting as a technology giant with a customer-led focus that generates, manages, optimises and interrogates data through digital technology as well as designing, managing, operating and maintaining both its supply chain and assets through digital technology.

Introduction

The Railway in Great Britain is approaching its 200th anniversary in 2030 and much of the GB Railway we use today was established in the 1870s and by 1914 there were over 120 railway operating companies moving passengers and freight on 32,000 km of track. By 1923 the British Government amalgamated these 120 railway operating companies into four main groups to being an economic focus to the railway. In 1939, the four main groups were brought under government control to support the national war effort and by 1947 the nationalised railway was established as ‘British Rail’. In 1993 British Rail was privatised and in 2002, after years of loss making and operational disasters, the British Government created a not-for-profit organisation called Network Rail. In 2022, the British Government created a new public body called Great British Railways to become operational in 2023. Great British Railways promises to bring an integrated approach rail travel and transform the railway. This thought leadership article explores how GB Railways could operate if it were to adopt the approach of a Tech Giant to operate the railway rather than a reinvention of the last 65 years of railway operation.

The Operating Model (2002-2023)

The current operating model of the railway is fragmented and a mixture of public and private organisations who work together to move passengers and freight around Great Britain. There is an added layer of complexity in the form of public organisations where in England it is overseen by the UK Government but in Scotland and Wales it is overseen by the devolved administrations. Whilst the public organisations are not-for-profit, both the train and freight operating companies, acting as the private organisations, are profit making organisations. The public organisations own and maintain the infrastructure assets such as the tracks, power lines, signals and stations as well as the timetable whilst the private organisations run the train services. The private organisations, acting as train operating companies, do not own any assets at all; they lease the stations from the UK Government and lease trains from rolling stock owners all under a franchise operating model. To add a further level of complexity, the rolling stock owners often own their own depots to provide maintenance activities to the trains. So, what do the train operating companies own; they own the relationship with the passengers, and they define the level of service(s) they wish to offer those passengers.

If we look at the railway as a system, it has an infrastructure owner and maintainer (public), several rolling stock owners (private), several train operating companies (private), several freight operating companies (private). All these organisations are required to work together to deliver a service to both passengers and freight customers, but they all have competing priorities. The infrastructure owner is required to have reliable infrastructure that opens train paths for the trains to deliver the timetable. If for any reason a train path is not available to meet the timetable and the service is delayed or cancelled, then the train or freight operating companies are entitled to compensation. Similarly, if a train breaks down and closes a train path causing delays, then the infrastructure owner is entitled to compensation and the rolling stock owner may be liable for the compensation. So, what we really have is a system that is transactional and built around financial penalties that remain within the three primary stakeholders of infrastructure, train and freight operating companies and rolling stock owners. The fourth stakeholder of the system is the passenger, who can be divided into four classifications; leisure (private), business (private and public), commuters (private and public) and mobility impaired which could be any combination of the three previous categories (private and public). The passenger, on the whole, does not understand the railway as a system but the interactions of the previous three stakeholders can impact upon the passenger experience and perception of the railway as a transportation provider. With the system operating in a transactional nature, we can see how the passenger may not be viewed as a customer by its stakeholders.

Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 brings a whole new focus to the railway. It is the digital connectivity of then customer with products and processes using disruptive technologies. These disruptive technologies will take the form of cyber-physical systems and will incorporate the internet-of-things and cloud computing. Furthermore, these disruptive technologies will generate and collate data which in turn generates big data. Big data is then cleaned and scraped to create smart data which then leads to business data and the creation or exploitation of existing or new revenue streams. Looking inward towards the operation of the railway, there isn’t a common technology platform that brings together data from the infrastructure with the trains and passengers into one common place, but Industry 4.0 and its disruptive technologies could change that. Industry 4.0 should be the catalyst for change under the GB Railways transformation and it can certainly help shift the current operating model towards a more integrated railway.

Great British Railways Transformation

The Great British Railways transformation has acknowledged the fragmented system of the current operating model and that there is no joined up thinking. It promises to deliver an integrated railway that will deliver passenger focused travel with simpler modern fares and reliable services. It has ten outcomes that it is seeking to deliver as follows:

• a modern passenger experience;

• a retail revolution;

• new ways of working with the private sector;

• economic recovery and financial sustainable railways;

• greater control for local people and places;

• cleaner, greener railways;

• bold, new opportunities for rail freight;

• increased speed of delivery and efficient enhancements;

• skilled, innovative workforce;

• a simpler industry structure.

With a passenger focus and integrated railway, Industry 4.0 and its disruptive technologies can play their part in underpinning the transformation. The Tech Giants focus on customers and GB Railways intend to do this but remain focused on calling customers as passengers.

The Tech Giants

The Tech Giants, such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple have many things in common, but they are all focused on the customer and the customer journey in engaging with or buying their products and services. The range of products and services is extensive but organised in nature covering disruptive technologies such as:

• e-commerce

• social networking;

• online advertising;

• consumer electronics;

• cloud computing and software;

• media streaming;

• artificial intelligence;

• smart home;

• self-driving cars.

The Tech Giants disruptive technologies are built upon the principles of Industry 4.0 creating cyber-physical systems such as artificial intelligence, smart home, self-driving cars etc, whilst building eco systems such as the internet-of things, cloud computing, software and electronics. All of these disruptive technologies are creating, organising and scraping data that becomes smart and business data that allows them to evolve; they effectively control the whole data lifecycle that facilitates the way in which they innovate and disrupt the technology markets. This data can be held at public or private organisation levels as well as personal levels. The application of reimagining the railway to think and operate like a Tech Giant could become reality if we place the passenger as the customer and the stakeholders as the disruptive technologies working together to provide a service that the customer will buy.

The GB Railway as a Tech Giant

Rail Statistics at a Glance

According to the DfT during 2020—21 rail usage was down by 78% and that 388 million journeys were made over the period. The primary journey purpose is commuting with 47% of all journeys being attributed to commuting to and from places of work or education. The next identifiable purpose is leisure travel which accounts for 45% of all journeys with the remaining 8% attributable to business passengers. It has not been possible to break down how many passengers were mobility impaired in the categories, but an average estimate would suggest that 2.5% of the 388 million journeys made were likely to be made by mobility impaired passengers. Whilst this doesn’t mean there were 388 million passengers over the period, it does mean that there is data available for 388 million passenger journeys and that represents a large data set that could be cleaned and scraped and turned into smart and business data for the railway and broken down into passenger classifications.

Considering the Passenger as a Customer

If GB Railways are to think like a Tech Giant, then the term passenger needs to be replaced with the term customer. Given that an objective is to create a modern passenger experience, there should be a consideration given to the passenger that they are buying a service from GB Railways and that the service may be delivered though a few additional products that the customer may purchase. GB Railways will need to shift the current thinking of a passenger to that of a customer and that certain customer service levels must be met to retain and attract new customers.

Products and Service Thinking

In order to think and operate like a Tech Giant GB Railways need to become more customer centric in their thinking. The customer will be buying a primary service that transports them from their origin to their destination but that should not be limited to a station-to-station experience; it should be inclusive of the whole journey experience and adopt an ecommerce experience. The ecommerce experience should start with the primary service and build outwards, considering factors such as:

• whether the customer needs a parking space at the station and pre-pays for the privilege of a parking space;

• whether the customer needs an electric vehicle charging point as part of the parking space;

• whether the customer needs a window or aisle seat;

• whether they need a desk, power point or at seat entertainment which could be their own technology that forms a smart home in a train carriage or their own media streaming platform;

• whether they need a table service for onboard refreshments;

• whether they want to pre-book time for refreshments to arrive;

• whether they are travelling as a large group and want to be seated together;

• whether they need to book a taxi for onward travel to their destination which could a self-driving vehicle;

• whether they need taxi to collect them at final destination to take them to the station which could be a self-driving vehicle;

• whether they require service updates to be sent to their smart device using social networking.

These are just a few examples of the types of products and services that GB railways could offer. In order to minimise the choices and make fares simpler to understand, GB Railways could offer regular or repeat customers with a loyalty scheme or subscription service. Subscription models could be broken down in to, for example, lite regular or premium experiences and in each category a range of services offered to the customer. Using cloud computing to generate smart business data, they could create personalised online advertising tailored to meet customers specific needs and based on their customer experience and choices to date, maybe even advising that they need to change their subscription model or suspend it due to lack of use. Disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence could be used to create service updates and choices available where disruption occurs to the primary service, based on previous choices the customer has made.

Operating the Railway

Given the complexity of the current operating model, it is possible to apply Tech Giant thinking to the operational railway. Given that GB Railways will be moving towards a single organisation operating the railway, it will be possible to think like a Tech Giant and have a common data environment that brings not only the customer data in one central place but also the data of the operational railway. It would be possible to create a digital twin of the railway that is able to, for example, predict with more accuracy the peak travel times and the demands placed on the infrastructure to meet those demands. This could, for example, look at the demands for energy use, such as electricity, to power the railway to keep trains moving and to meet customer demand for energy to run apps on the train or in the station. It could look at demand for access to wireless networks for data transmission and generation/capture requirements at that point in time. The digital twin could be used for scenario planning to simulate different operating modes such as normal, degraded and recovery and capture human behaviours to inform artificial intelligence decision making for the future. Given that we have customer demand data captured as products and thinking, it is possible that this data can be informed to the operational railway; it could enable stations to plan when they may need more front-line staff, for retail operations to plan staffing levels to meet perceived demand, for trains to operate with more carriages to meet demand for seating and other products and services. Recalling that Tech Giants react to data and smart and business data, GB Railways would have the platform to truly offer products and services to its customers, better understand it customers wants and needs and react accordingly.

Conclusion

This thought leadership article set out to reimagine a technology led railway that thinks and operates like a Tech Giant. The main premise of a Tech Giant is to think from the customer perspective and to use big data to make informed decisions. Everything the Tech Giant does is built around the data it collects, owns and analyses and from there it builds innovations to meet demands, retain and attract new customers. GB Railways will need to repurpose its passenger definition to become customer led and ensure that as it moves towards an integrated operating model that the customer is at the centre of the model. If the customer can make informed decisions and build a tailored end to end journey, then it will become a more modern passenger experience, which is an objective of GB Railways.