What benefits will the new standards on AC electrification and rolling stock deliver to industry?

It's all very well to say ‘the new standards have nearly a hundred fewer requirements’, but this doesn’t explain how the new standards are helping industry reduce costs. This reduction can occur in areas as diverse as legal compliance, assurance, safety, and design, to name just a few. Below are some examples which illustrate how this can work in practice.

Independent assessments are sometimes needed to check that new, renewed or upgraded assets meet the requirements of relevant legislation, such as the Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011. In this process the ‘client’ is typically a manufacturer or infrastructure manager who is responsible for ensuring the project complies with the legislation. The client selects an assessment body to undertake the assessment. Both the client and the assessment body incur costs when establishing how electrification and rolling stock assets meet the regulatory requirements. These new standards will help reduce these costs. It is estimated that the more focused and simplified requirements of the new standards will reduce these costs by around 40%. This is a considerable saving. It is expected that this more targeted and refined approach will save industry in the region of (IRO) £1m over five years. This shows that changes which simplify and reduce the quantity of requirements, and support a more targeted approach to independent assessment, can have significant benefit to industry. 

Another area where industry costs are large is dewirement incidents. Dewirement can happen in many ways, but one way is when too much force occurs at the interface between the train’s pantograph and the overhead contact wire. This can result in catastrophic equipment failures and extensive damage to assets, including damage to rolling stock and electrification. This can be spread over several kilometres of a route. These incidents can delay the train, sometimes for considerable periods of time, and can have substantial knock-on consequences for the rail network more widely, affecting many other trains too. Consequently, the estimated cost is typically IRO £0.2m per dewirement event. The good news is that even a relatively small improvement in performance here will help industry reduce such events and deliver a more reliable experience for passengers and freight users.