Making the most of our expertise

The Rail Standards and Safety Board is proud to be a membership organisation. We work for, and with, all organisations with an interest in rail. We consult closely with our members to create and carry through an agenda that represents, and benefits, the entire rail industry.

While our core work is intended for the wider industry, our members also have individual focuses and priorities. And more and more organisations beyond our core membership are turning to us for rail knowledge and resources.

That’s why we provide additional services alongside our core membership offering – to make sure our knowledge is available, and useful, to as wide an audience as possible.

Making more knowledge go further

We’ve been working collaboratively with the rail industry since 2003, making Britain’s railway safer, more sustainable and more efficient. It’s our responsibility to create, codify and organise the specialist knowledge that rail runs on, and to ensure that organisations with an interest in rail can access and use that information, no matter where they are. 

Over those 20 years, we’ve become one of the world’s go-to sources of impartial, expert knowledge on all aspects of rail operations and safety. A huge number of industry organisations and individuals contribute to this work by being active in our groups and committees. 

While building this knowledge repository, we’ve also been working hard to become more responsive to needs of our members.

But there will always be occasions where an organisation’s specific needs will go further – so to give them the opportunity to make full use of our expertise, we need to go further too. 

Making our resources better for all

As the independent safety, standards and research body for Great Britain’s rail network, our first priority is to help organisations with an interest in rail to bridge gaps in their knowledge and follow best practice around the industry.

Because we’re a not-for-profit company, the fees we earn from services outside our core offering go straight back into these activities. This lets us offer a deeper level of service – for instance to organisations that need to apply our expertise to specific issues – without diverting resources from other members.

So everyone can get the most from our cutting-edge work on topics like: workforce health, safety and wellbeing passenger and public safety; safety intelligence and risk analysis; sustainable development; and asset and infrastructure maintenance and development.

Our additional services

RSSB Training offers open or bespoke courses to all industry organisations, remotely and in person. Our scheduled open courses are suitable for a wide variety of individual roles across the rail industry. We can also tailor many courses to create bespoke offerings that meet any organisation’s specific needs.

Topics include non-technical skills awareness and integration, accident investigation, frontline leadership training, and wellbeing in the workplace. See the full list or the RSSB Training brochure. 

RSSB Consultancy offers bespoke services for organisations with an interest in rail that need impartial expert input on a specific project or subject. Our experts have specialist knowledge in a wide variety of areas, including legislation and regulations, control command and communications, safety and health, rail operations, environment and sustainability, and risk management.

RSSB Affiliation: companies whose business has a relatively small link with the railway, or that are based outside Great Britain, can become Affiliates. The main Affiliate categories are: UK or overseas railway companies and administrations; UK or overseas agencies and bodies that support rail; and organisations seeking to formalise a mutually beneficial relationship with RSSB.

Assurance services: we provide various assurance services for the industry. 

We also offer the app and print versions of the Rule Book, and maintain R2 – the Vehicle Database to Improve Maintenance Planning, rail’s centralised asset management system for railway vehicles and components.

Fit for the future

We remain committed to our membership structure – particularly our co-operative, collaborative and open approach to working with the industry. But we won’t rest on our laurels. We know we must flex our approaches, to ensure that our members and other organisations can access our knowledge in the way that suits their requirements. 

That way we can continue to make a real difference to the safety, efficiency and sustainability of the railway, for the good of passengers and users not just in the UK, but around the world.