Programme Scope

The RSSB R&D programme carries out research and development on industry-wide issues and in support of the development of strategy, for the national rail network of Great Britain.

Industry-wide R&D addresses three main categories of issue:

(A)		Interface issues, ie improving the shared understanding of interfaces, and agreeing the actions needed to manage them.
(B)		System issues, ie improving understanding of how the whole railway behaves and the interactions of its constituent parts.
(C)		Other issues that individual companies cannot address on their own. This includes the identification and spreading of good practice.

Strategy Support R&D supports the development of the future vision of the railways and assesses how that can and should be delivered. It supports policy decisions as to the balance between the railway that government and public want, and what they can afford; it is instrumental in managing the public policy risks associated with making high-level decisions about the railway.

Types of R&D

The term ‘research and development’ is regarded as including the following:

(1)		Developing models and other decision support tools
(2)		Improving understanding of, and developing the means of controlling, all types of business risk
(3)		Investigating the performance of railway systems, technologies, and people, and identifying the means of improving that performance
(4)		Carrying out concept and feasibility studies for new or improved technologies, and developing new tools and processes to the point where they can be taken up by other parties on a commercial basis
(5)		Identifying good practice, and developing the means of promulgating it
(6)		Developing improved mechanisms for the management and communication of knowledge
(7)		Developing improved mechanisms for communicating and engaging with the industry’s stakeholders
(8)		Carrying out horizon scanning, foresight, and scenario planning studies

Research Ideas

If you have a specific idea for a research project - whether you are from the railway industry, a potential supplier, or a member of the public - please complete an R&D Idea Form and email it to research@rssb.co.uk. Please note that any research idea may be the subject of competitive tendering.

Implementing research findings and estimating their benefits

RSSB has recently developed an industry approved approach to the estimation of benefits at the outset of a research project, for use in its research programmes. As a pre-emptive support tool for that assessment, we have also looked at how to improve the likelihood that research findings can and will be implemented or close a knowledge gap.

This work has been done in two streams. The first looked at the ways in which you can estimate the quantitative benefits of research benefits, as a means of determining the potential return on investment; the second looked at what constitutes successful implementation of research benefits, and the enablers for and barriers to achieveing it.

A short guide to the estimation of research benefits

This guide summarises the approach to estimation, and is published for the benefit of other research bodies, and to increase the transparency of processes that support the RSSB programmes. It can potentially help sponsors and managers of research to:

Provide a basic justification for proposed research
Prioritise between different research proposals
Determine whether or not the proposed research should go ahead

A PDF version of the guide is available to download at http://www.rssb.co.uk/pdf/reports/research/short_guide_to_estimation_of_benefits_issue_1.pdf.

What is ‘successful research implementation’, and what are the barriers and enablers to achieving it?

This workstream assessed the factors that influence the implementation of research findings, and developed a ‘toolkit’ that can be used to identify the benefits realisation path for individual projects, before starting the research work. PDF versions of the summary and full report are available to download. The toolkit is available in the appendices of the documents.
Summary report: http://www.rssb.co.uk/pdf/reports/research/implementation_rb_final.pdf
Full report: http://www.rssb.co.uk/pdf/reports/research/implementation_rpt_final.pdf