Simon Scott has been appointed the Railway Industry Association’s (RIA) new Technical & Innovation Director. The highly experienced senior leader within the UK railway industry, will lead the member organisation’s technical and innovation agenda at a pivotal time, as the sector prepares for the establishment of Great British Railways (GBR). Simon’s career in rail spans some 35 years and includes roles with a number of the industry’s most recognised public and private sector railway related organisations, including British Rail, Cubic Transportation Systems, Metronet Rail, Atkins, Ricardo, Amey, Network Rail, PA Consulting, East West Railway, and Fujitsu.
The future of UK rail right now has a once in a generation opportunity. I saw rail restructure in the 1990s the beginning of my career, and the benefits of private investment, particularly in rolling stock, but I also saw the effects of fragmentation. We now have the opportunity to eliminate unnecessary boundaries and work towards a railway that gives customers – both passengers and freight – the best service and value.
At RIA as Technical & Innovation Director, along with my colleagues, we have a great opportunity to help with that journey. As track and train comes together, the rail supply chain will play a key part in improving the railway with GBR and transport authorities, and with freight companies and open access operators. RIA’s established collaboration with essential industry bodies is a key success factor too.
Challenging the norms
Throughout some 35 years in transport industries I have always been a systems person, who likes to understand how things fit together and how to improve the overall transport system. This has been a constant journey of learning, never more so when I experienced recently at Fujitsu the approach the ICT industry takes to design and delivery. The potential benefits to transport systems of this very different approach is significant, particularly in operational systems.
It is not just about the technologies emerging though, although AI is a potential disruptor and Quantum a paradigm change which are ineffective without changes for people, process and data. A systemic approach treats technology, people, process and data as one complex change.
There is some brilliant expertise in the supply chain that could really help with this approach. From a RIA perspective we need to facilitate the conversation so that we get the best out of our amazing industry, ensuring that it is done quickly and efficiently, and we also need to make sure we don’t lose the great work that has already been done.
Three themes
So there are three themes when it comes to RIA’s Technical & Innovation aspirations.
1. The first is about bringing track and train together. GBR has stated this as their key benefit, but what does that mean for us as an industry and how do we as RIA facilitate the industry to help GBR to achieve that? You can see the benefits already being realised in the new Integrated Business Units which are being set up, particularly bringing people together to work more effectively together as one railway. There are less immediate opportunities at the system interfaces that can be realised. A lot of people have work very hard on those interfaces over the years, so how do we utilise what they’ve done and accelerate the work now that some of the constraints are removed?
2. Secondly, I was part of the digital railway programme at Network Rail in which we looked at how we digitalise the railway 10 years ago. A lot of what was envisioned then is happening now, but having experienced what digital can do at Fujitsu there is a significant amount of potential still to be realised. It’s not without its risks though – digitalisation and then Quantum places significant challenges on security and safety. So one of the spaces we will explore is bringing information technology and operational technology together, and how to manage the cyber risks more effectively. There is a lot of good work in cyber security going on, a diverse range of services and products, but the sharing of good practice and approach as GBR forms perhaps needs more maturing to be more efficient and effective.
3. The third part is around the innovation space, we can be rightly proud of our ability to solve technical challenges (just witness the breadth and depth of SMEs that have risen to these challenges). RIA’s challenge in this space is to get from proof of concept to rollout and so fully realise the benefits. How do we make sure the capability is ready to scale so that the business case and rollout are successful? This we will be addressing with the next phase of Unlocking Innovation, with our strategic partners Network Rail, UK Rail Research Innovation Network (UKRRIN) and Telent Technology Services.
Alongside these three themes, fundamentally we need to help RIA member, the wider supply chain, and rail clients to achieve sustainable pipelines, whether supporting GBR in proposing Funding Period 1 (the successor to Control Period 7, which starts in April 2029) or helping our members to find work opportunities. It is critical that a sustainable volume of work comes through to maintain the capabilities needed to deliver the improvements GBR will need in the future.
Working together to a common objective
One of the challenges I’ve seen in the industry over the years are voices trying to be dominant. So whether that be project management, operations or the engineering voice (in no particular order and there are more), one thing I learned, particularly at East West Rail (EWR), is that we need to have a common voice and listen to each other in a balanced constructive way that leads to better decisions based on agreed objectives, not opinion.
It is important that we work together to a common objective. The one we used at EWR was customer experience. Whenever an expert would say that “this is the answer”, we encouraged people to ask questions of that expert, referencing how the answer impacted customer experience. Eight out of ten times the expert explains why they’ve said that, and that’s fine, and you learn. But every now and then, the ninth and tenth question made the expert think and generate more innovative solutions. So creating a more level playing field in solving problems, using clear outcomes and objectives, is going to be massively important for GBR.
RIA has got a big role to play for it in the industry, bringing together multiple voices, but every participant in the discussion has got to make sure we’re listening to each other equally. Fundamentally when that happens, things move at pace. It can sometimes seem like it would take too long, but the adage ‘less haste, more speed’ really does apply.
To conclude, it is an incredible time to be part of the UK railway and I and the RIA team look forward to contributing to the development of a harmonised industry that improves the railway for our passengers and freight customers in the future.
About RIA: RIA champions a dynamic UK rail supply sector, with more than 480 companies in members, active across the whole of railway supply, covering a diverse range of products and services and including both multi-national companies and SMEs (60 per cent by number). www.riagb.org.uk
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