What is in place now

• A focussed and compelling Rail Technical Strategy that enables prioritisation of efforts in the shorter term with a clear longer-term direction of travel.
• Pockets of business driven innovation where targeted initiatives have been established to solve specific business problems.
• Coordinated and aligned publicly funded research, development and innovation pipelines.
• An increasingly devolved industry where train operators and infrastructure managers can identify, lead and deploy solutions to benefit regional and local customers and other beneficiaries.
• Key Train Requirements encouraging and supporting the adoption of best practice and recently acquired knowledge on rolling stock.
• Research planning incorporates the development of possible options and routes to deployment, recognising the potential owners and the necessary actions.
• Closer relationships between supply chain, academia and industry established, overcoming barriers to progression of research into development and innovation.
• A framework for establishing product, system or service readiness - Rail Industry Readiness Levels (RIRLs).
• Process and commitment to challenge standards.

What we are working on

• Scaling up the level of engagement of business leaders and front-line teams with innovation.
• Increasing the visibility of work and initiatives, led by different organisations across the sector, that are relevant to the five RTS functional priorities.
• Improving the level of awareness of important new findings and solutions emerging from R&D.
• Planning and scheduling of testing and in-service piloting while R&D is underway.
• Exploiting further newly created opportunities and mechanisms to collaborate across the value chain and bring together different expertise, as successfully demonstrated by UKRRIN.
• Ensuring that sound safety-thinking and effective standards enable innovative solutions and their deployment.
• Identifying insertion points for the introduction of new technology at an early stage in its development and taking proactive action to deliver in time to meet them.
• Connecting the RTS with wider transport and government initiatives to draw support from, and share success with other sectors.
• Scanning across sectors for fast moving and high-potential technologies and disruptors that could significantly impact railway operation and user experience.

Where we need to get to

• All businesses, and the individuals, which work in rail recognise that driving innovation and investing in solutions beyond the needs of today’s railway is imperative.
• Industry leaders commit to sponsoring solutions to long-term challenges.
• Research delivery is prioritised and timed to maximise deployment and implementation opportunities, and is overseen and steered by empowered cross-industry entities.
• New solutions are developed in ways which de-risk their introduction with better use of system integration, simulations and modelling tools.
• Key requirements (similar to the Key Train Requirements) developed for other railway systems, underpinned by dynamic, technology agnostic standards, to inform compatibility and facilitate innovation.
• Industry investment plans routinely draw on R&D outputs and the risks associated with their initial deployment are recognised, accepted and appropriately managed.
• Clear routes to develop solutions, and the associated business cases, through the RIRLs toward full market readiness are well understood and used.
• New commercial models to support deployment of new technologies and wider innovation makes innovation in rail more attractive for both public and private funders.