Introduction
The RSSB research programme tackles railway challenges that go beyond individual organisations. Outputs range from feasibility studies to in-service trials.
Benefits include safety improvements, cost efficiencies, increased service reliability, and carbon reduction.
Implementation is at the core of the research programme. Only when the rail industry adopts our findings are we meeting RSSB’s mission to ‘help our members keep Britain moving with safer, smarter rail’. Successful implementation is also at the core of what the Department for Transport, the main funder of the research programme, asks us to achieve.
This report describes our approach to implementation and presents a summary of our progress.
It also includes a selection of success stories of research findings starting to be used, or achieving full implementation status, during 2024/2025.
Find out more about any of our research projects by searching for the reference number at rssb.co.uk/research-catalogue.
For support with implementing any of our findings in your organisation, get in touch at customer-portal.rssb.co.uk.
At RSSB, we have a high level of success with bringing our research findings into use. The pathway to successful implementation varies depending on the type of research undertaken, as does the timeframe to realise the benefits. Below is a summary of the implementation pathways and timeframe depending on the type of innovation being pursued.
We develop a bespoke implementation plan for each project at its inception. This plan is refined during the project lifecycle and, if the findings are significant, kept alive after the research is completed. It is used to support and monitor findings progressing along their implementation journeys, which often last many years.
We use the following implementation stages to mark significant milestones in the level of take-up:
planning for take-up and use
initial use by first adopter(s)
advanced adoption by multiple parties
full integration into business as usual across industry.
