The UK is the home of the railways, having invented and built the first rail network in the world. Throughout the years, the UK rail industry has been at the forefront of innovation, delivering new technologies that have better connected communities, empowered passengers, enabled our freight industry to move goods around the country, and supported a growing national economy.
However, in modern times, our railways face great challenges, from the Coronavirus pandemic, to the need to decarbonise rail to the continuing move to a more digitalised and data-driven society. We also need a skilled, diverse workforce to deliver the railway network of the future.
These challenges will require inventive thinking, collaboration across the railway industry and the exploration and exploitation of new technologies, so rail can improve its offer to customers and help the sector deliver even more for UK plc. These solutions will have many forms, whether it’s through the materials we use, the automation of certain activities or the use of less energy-intensive processes, to name a few.
This Rail Technical Strategy provides the path for doing this, setting out five priorities and the enablers that will support this progress. For the UK rail supply community, the Strategy provides a clear steer for our future direction. Alongside the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network, Network Rail’s R&D Portfolio, the work of HS2 and TfL and organisations like RDG and RSSB, the Rail Technical Strategy can help support suppliers in delivering innovative new products and services, thereby producing even more from the UK’s £36 billion railway industry. I would urge all, whatever the size or discipline of your organisation, to get involved with this important work.
Whilst there are significant challenges before the industry, UK rail is well-placed and ready to meet them. What’s more, the opportunities from the Strategy are also considerable – a rail sector that is able to meet these challenges through innovation will not only provide greater benefits to rail users, it will be able to use these new technologies to export more around the globe, generate more investment and jobs, and attract even more talented individuals to join the sector.
And the UK will maintain its longstanding tradition of a cutting-edge, world-leading rail industry, retaining our position as the home of the railways.
September 2020
