What's coming up in 2025?

As 2024 draws to a close, we take a look at some valuable RSSB initiatives continuing or kicking off in 2025.

Here's what to expect in 2025

As we round out each year, we like to reflect on our efforts to continue equipping industry with the tools and solutions it needs to thrive.

This year saw us deliver the Route Availability Calculator, which automates the previously manual calculation process of route management.

We also worked with some of our members on air quality improvement measures, assisting them to produce Air Quality Improvement Plans. In addition, we’re pleased to have recently celebrated the first anniversary of the Sustainable Rail Blueprint (more on that here).

Earlier in the year, our research team closed out a project with significant benefits for the freight sector. By updating the methodology behind historic trailing load limits to account for the tractive power of new locomotives, we enabled freight operators to start running much longer trains.

And elsewhere in the business, we published a range of new and updated standards capable of delivering millions of pounds worth of benefit for industry.

But where will next year take us? As always, the first step in shaping our deliverables across 2025 will be engaging with our members through our Business Plan Consultation. This process is vital, as it enables us to focus our attention on delivering the products and resources that will bring true value to our members. Coming to you next month, this consultation allows key industry stakeholders like you to have a say on our proposed future workstreams. (So, keep an eye out.)

Outside of that, we already have a number of promising new initiatives in the pipeline, including:

collaborating with industry to ready the Train Protection Strategy
addressing issues related to fatigue
launching new data insights platforms.

We’ll explore each of these, letting you know what to expect, on the pages that follow.

Take a look at the Route Availability Calculator.

Future work for 2025

Readying the Train Protection Strategy

Train protection systems, like the Train Protection Warning System (TPWS), are crucial for preventing collisions and derailments. But TPWS only covers 40% of the network, and it lacks continuous speed supervision.

To address these gaps, we’re working closely with industry on a Train Protection Strategy. Through this work, the aim is to implement more comprehensive measures and encourage interim improvements before the full European Train Control System deployment.

We greatly value the collaboration already seen on this work, having engaged with about a dozen industry expert groups so far. But this is just the beginning. Work will continue in 2025 to bring about further improvements in operational safety.

Addressing fatigue

Fatigue has long been a critical issue in the rail industry, affecting both the safety and performance of rail operations. Next year, we’ll publish the cross-industry report from the 2023 Fatigue Survey, which produced 24 individual company reports in 2024 and is expected to provide significant new insights for the industry fatigue programme.

Alongside those efforts, our industry fatigue groups will continue their work:

The freight group is focusing on ORR’s fatigue risk factors.
The passenger operations group is updating fatigue training packs.
And the infrastructure group is investigating what night working might mean and aligning with the Network Rail fatigue standard.

As ever, we remain committed to helping industry address issues around fatigue and ensuring the safety and welfare of all rail employees.

Launching data insights platforms

In 2025, we’ll also be launching new data insights platforms to enhance industry’s data analysis capabilities.

You’ll already be aware that we’ve embraced digital transformation this past year, but what you might not know is that the skills and expertise we’ve developed will help us reduce our dependency on external software. We’re also moving a number of our tools from spreadsheets to systems. In addition, bringing in AI will help us catch inconsistencies and improve the quality of the industry data we aggregate.

We’ll launch a platform for safety in March, which will replace our current Safety Management Intelligence System (SMIS), and one for sustainability later in the year. Our hope is that these will continue to foster a culture of data sharing and collaboration. In turn, this will drive innovation and efficiency across the rail sector.

Want to learn more?

Check out what else we’ll be working on in 2025.

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