Supporting Industry Strategy Development

Overview

Rail is currently one of the most sustainable forms of transport and it is the industry’s desire to improve its sustainability performance both to ensure that this remains the case, and to support the Government’s wider sustainability agenda for society as a whole.

The SRP supports the industry in strategy development through the exploration of what it means to be sustainable and how the industry can best contribute to a sustainable and integrated transport system.

Rail Industry Sustainable Development Principles

The Rail Industry Sustainable Development Principles have been developed with significant input from its stakeholders and evaluated and endorsed by the Sustainable Development Steering Group.

The Principles reflect the knowledge and understanding of both the challenges and opportunities of sustainable development for the rail industry, developed through the Sustainable Rail Programme. They cover social, economic and environmental issues and will be key to helping the industry to develop sustainably in the long term.

Key members of the rail industry are already committed to implementing the Principles in their delivery plans. Going forward, the goal is to have them embedded within the industry planning and delivery framework through HLOS 2, franchise specifications, open access agreements and industry procurement practices.

The Principles will also provide a key platform for the future work of the Sustainable Rail Programme, in helping to embed sustainability throughout the industry.

Foresight Studies in Sustainable Development

The Foresight Studies in Sustainable Development was a scenarios-based exercise through which industry stakeholders explored the future landscape in which the rail industry will operate. Through a series of interviews and workshops, the project developed four potential future scenarios as a tool to identify key strategic actions that will help the industry to develop more sustainably. It has been widely recognised within the international rail industry for its innovation and won an award at the World Congress on Railway Research in Seoul in May 2008.

Building on this research, a Scenarios Toolkit has been developed to enable individual companies to use the scenarios for strategic planning, risk management and service innovation.

Individual versus shared responsibility for action

The founding research for the SRP, T438 The Rail Industry – A Way Forward on Sustainability proposed a useful 3 category classification system which identifies where collaboration is required across the industry or with Government to address issues or take initiatives forward.

This system highlighted that importance of cooperation as capital investment in one part of the industry often delivers benefits in a different part of the industry or to society, due to the inter-dependent nature of the industry. This insight gave stakeholders the confidence to openly discuss opportunities for progress.

Category 1	Initiatives that can be undertaken by one business on a business case basis (i.e. where investment yields a commercial return) and that require little or limited coordination with other parts of the industry.
Category 2	Initiatives are those that can be undertaken on a business case basis (i.e. where investment yields a commercial return) but where the business case requires coordination between different parts of the industry (e.g. where capital investment in one area essentially yields benefits to another part of the industry).
Category 3	Initiatives that are either bought at high cost but with no direct benefit to the rail industry and/or require significant capital funding that may at the earliest stages be beyond the industry’s capacity, but meet wider policy objectives. Category 3 initiatives will generally require government involvement.

Route Map to a Rail Industry Sustainable Development Strategy

T438 The Rail Industry – A Way Forward on Sustainability represents the beginning of the SRP. This research defined a Route Map the industry could follow to develop an SD Strategy. The Route Map formed the basis of the SRP for the first 2.5 years and provided an excellent foundation of knowledge for further work in sustainability.

The Route Map consisted of four consecutive stages as depicted below. Tasks 1 to 8 are complete as described below. Tasks 9 to 12 have been absorbed into a full suite of projects.

Data gathering and background research

The first workstream was completed at the end of 2006. This phase saw the development of initial metrics for sustainable development, benchmarking of railway performance against other modes (road and aviation) and selected European countries (Sweden, Germany and Italy). For research output, refer to T674: Developing metrics and benchmarking for sustainable development in the rail industry. Further development of metrics is underway as described in Measuring Performance.

In addition, the first workstream established a clear picture of the state of knowledge on sustainability issues relating to the railway as at 2006, through a comprehensive literature review of social, economic and environmental issues.

For literature reviews on the following topics, refer to T675: Review of research relating to sustainable development for the railway:

• Environmental: Climate change; Energy and resource use; Air Pollution; Noise and Vibration; Land and Water Pollution; Biodiversity; Waste Management; Electromagnetic Radiation; Heritage, Visual & other Impacts.
• Social: Service Provision; Physical Mobility; Customer Perception and Experience; Safety and Personal Security; Corporate Social Responsibility; Employment and Workforce Issues; Health.
• Economic: Industry costs; External costs; Industry benefits (revenue); External benefits; Role of Government; Rail Purchasing and Procurement.

This research is being added to as further topics of interest are identified. Refer to Literature Reviews

Analysis

The second workstream was completed in 2008. First up, a significant milestone was reached with the publication of The Case for Rail 2007, the industry’s first Sustainable Development report. Next, Foresight Studies in SD was completed.

Strategy Development

The original objective of the Route Map was for the industry leaders to draft and agree a sustainable development strategy. However, having completed the Foresight Studies in SD, the Sustainable Development Steering Group concluded sustainability thinking and action should be integrated into the Rail Industry Strategy as opposed to being defined in a stand-alone document. As such, the task of developing the SD strategy was replaced with the development of SD Principles and a plan to integrate these within the industry planning and delivery framework.

Implementation

The final Route Map work stream, as foreseen in early 2006, aimed to support the industry to embed sustainability through the development of business cases for specific initiatives and modifying business incentives as required. This work has blossomed into a full suite of SRP projects.