Tom Lee Director of Standards, RSSB
2023 has continued the trend of high quality standards, produced on time with excellent industry support and engagement. The number of deviations has reduced, partly due to revised AC electrification standards published in late 2022. The relatively few permanent deviations are a good indicator of the suitability of standards, while temporary deviations continue to effectively support stagework and trials for new practices that ultimately may lead to revised standards.
Highlights have included a revision to the standard for defect reporting, analysis, and corrective action for signalling systems (DRACAS). The potential benefit this standard enables is the largest since we started to quantify benefits over five years ago. Informed by RSSB research and safety analysis, changes made to operational rules in September, that came into force in December, have started to remove some of the uses of detonators. This work will continue as alternative safety measures are more effective and more intrinsically safe. Also supported by RSSB research, the first objective means of measuring passenger seat comfort was published as a guidance note in June. This should influence greater seat comfort appropriate to the types of journey passengers are making.
This report summarises the key activities in 2023 and is divided into sections:
Section 2 showcases six representative new and revised standards published in 2023 explaining the objectives and benefits being delivered.
Section 3 provides a narrative from each of the chairs of the seven standards committees, discussing key areas of interest in the year, including international standardisation.
Section 4 gives a summary of the continued delivery of the Rail Standards Strategy following its approval in late 2020.
Section 5 includes information about how standards and changes to them are communicated.
Section 6 lists the standards committees and their subgroups.
Section 7 provides information on how to get in touch to seek help or provide feedback.
Finally, the appendix demonstrates, through detailed figures and analysis, the effective stewardship of the standards catalogue, specifically how the requirements of the Railway Standards Code are being met.
Revised Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) were published by the European Union in September 2023, a little later in the year than previously expected. Two major policy drivers for the revisions have been the adoption of digital technology and making freight transport more environmentally friendly. The new TSIs contain many other changes, to bring them up to date and align with other newer European standards.
In Great Britain, the content of the previous TSIs were adopted as NTSN. RSSB has monitored the change in TSIs closely, working with representatives across the industry and government to determine whether there is benefit in adopting the changes to TSIs in the corresponding NTSNs. Critically, Great Britain now has a clearer choice in whether to adopt the changes or not, or to do something different.
Following an initial consultation in 2022, RSSB launched a comprehensive consultation in November 2023 on proposed revisions to the NTSNs. This has been a substantial activity, not just for RSSB, but also the many individuals and organisations that we have collaborated with through 2022 and 2023. Final recommendations will be made on revised NTSNs on behalf of the industry to the DfT at the end of February 2024.
Changes to RSSB standards are managed as a project. The project includes an assessment of benefits, quantified when possible. The assessments are part of the industry consultation and ultimately published with the new or revised standard. Normally assessments are made over five years, as standards can take time to realise benefits, typically governed by project lifecycles.
The equivalent industry-agreed benefit of standards published in 2023 was just under £50million. This was dominated by very large benefits for the standard for signalling system defects, analysis, and corrective action. In this case the benefits were even greater, but measured over ten years, approximately half of this is accounted for within the £50m figure. The benefits are net, as in some cases there is a cost. Benefits are also very conservative. In reality the real benefits can be much larger, even by orders of magnitude.
There is no benefit in a standard if it is not adopted, so communicating changes and supporting the industry in adopting standards successfully is very important. RSSB provides a range of briefing materials for standards. The regular quarterly update webinars continue to be popular and well subscribed. Supplementary, single-topic webinars have also been popular again this year. Other supporting materials are also produced, for example the new guidance note on Operational Railway Safety Awareness (GOGN3616 issue one) has associated training course and assessment material available.
The new editions of the Railway Standards Code and the Standards Manual, the governance documents for creating, changing, deviating from and publishing railway standards, came into effect on 1 January 2024 and are published on our website.
The revisions to the Code and Manual included:
Changing the name from the Railway Group Standards Code to the Railway Standards Code, to align with the expansion of the scope of the Code to include governance procedures for Rail Industry Standards (RIS), National Operations Publications, and recommendations for revisions to NTSNs.
Updating the legislative context to reflect changes to the regulatory framework following the UK’s exit from the EU.
Clarifying that deviations are only required for National Technical Rules (NTRs) contained in a Railway Group Standard (RGS) required for authorisation to place into service.
Acknowledging procedures for RSSB technical notes.
All language is now gender neutral.
The new technical notes published in 2023 are set out in Appendix A under ‘Technical notes’. These documents, a format reintroduced in 2022, are proving very useful to get high quality, authoritative information out relatively quickly to support standards and likely future changes to standards. More are expected to be published in 2024.
Standards are a team effort. RSSB has a dedicated team of specialists delivering standards, and they are supported by colleagues across RSSB, especially from the System Safety and Health, Research and Development, Sustainable Development, and Communications and Engagement teams. Without this complementary resource it would not be possible to deliver the standards.
We’ve continued to enjoy fantastic support and collaboration from across the industry, in particular Network Rail, and from government and other bodies notably Rail Partners, the Rail Delivery Group, and the Railway Industry Association. This has been especially true for the development of revisions to the NTSNs. Without this support we would not be effective in delivering our work and we are most grateful.
Tom LeeDirector of Standards, RSSB
