Installing new technology and trialling it in an operational station is very challenging and there are many factors to take into consideration. It is not always clear how new solutions fit within in a space where there are clear processes, procedures or standards to follow. Nurturing an innovation culture is about finding your way through the existing processes, cultures and behaviours, and this needs to be done with care and understanding of the reasons behind why the current culture exists. It is about being trusted with the responsibility by others who carry accountability, so bringing them in is key.
Governing risks is a big challenge and presents a barrier to short-term testing of third-party innovations. Be prepared to respond to identified potential safety-regulation-breaking risks to the innovations you want to trial. To overcome this barrier, it is important to understand before testing which procedures, regulations and processes the innovation may break, to avoid having to pause a trial.
As stations are considered Critical National Infrastructure, the approach to trialling is robust and safety responsive. To get a trial proposal through governance and prevent existing safeguarding systems from being at risk, it needs to demonstrate compliance to guidance and mandatory provisions.
The best teams to understand the practicalities or constraints of trials in the station are the ones that run the station, manage the assets and operate the system every day. Ensure to get their support to evaluate and advise on risk. Station staff and other technical experts may be unfamiliar with the SIZ approach (and desired impacts) and therefore reluctant to engage and go ‘outside of the process’. Having mutual trust and respect helps overcome these issues. Spend time building up a relationship where they trust you, and work towards pragmatic mitigations to risks. This will allow innovations can be trialled effectively whilst demonstrating consideration and control of the risk.
A helpful set of questions to understand and articulate why a SIZ is the right project for your station can be found on page 6 of the following Better Transport report
A Station Innovation Zone is likely to continue as long as the initiative proves valuable. Therefore, key is to understand the viability of a Station Innovation Zone. Not only from the perspective of processes and structures, but also in terms of the people and effectiveness of the relationships formed. This can be challenging when there is not a clear endpoint defined and the steering group is small.
Knowing ‘why we are doing this’ is the first step in understanding how to test, review and validate the progress made to say that SIZ is achieving its goals and ambitions. Getting an understanding of the short, medium and long-term goals of the programme are a part of this. Aligning the aims of the SIZ to national and regional business plans gives senior leaders confidence in the approach and recognition of the novelty of the programme. This buy-in may be valuable too when challenges need wider support.
If it remains unclear how impactful the initiative is, it may result in a breaking down of well-intended collaboration and contracts. It is important to be able to show where impact is achieved – either within one of the trials or on a systems level and how you are making steps to achieving short, medium and long-term goals.
Recommendations:
- Define the benefits of the Station Innovation Zone, in terms of what it could achieve. This will be informed by the lead innovation focus and set innovation challenges, assessment of the station innovation context, the operational infrastructure, and available budget. This will allow to agree on the direction and the boundaries for the SIZ.
- Agree expectations: what does success look like, why are we doing this, what is in and out of scope, what are the short, medium and long-term goals?
- Balance challenge priorities and where budgets lie (for the process beyond the initial trials). Align what the success of the trials looks like with the priorities of the organisation. (The challenges set for the Bristol Temple Meads SIZ are strongly aligned to the strategic CP7 aims and objectives for the Wales and Western region.)
- Avoid misunderstanding or misperceptions of what is happening at the station (by general public, station staff and wider stakeholders).
- Set a short-term goal that can inform a set of challenges. (Our short-term goal was to ‘make the job a bit more efficient’ to ensure that passenger experience of the station improved.) The challenges can be used to identify which ‘problems’ to solve through the trialing of now solutions. Look into problems that can be tactical first steps, early quick wins, especially those that are linked to aims and objectives set out by NR strategies and priorities (e.g., Wales and Western CP7 strategy). They can drive the momentum to engage key internal and external stakeholders with the SIZ. On a practical note, set yourself a schedule for meetings and milestones for people to plan to.
- A medium-term goal is likely to focus on navigating things such as route to markets, commercialisation and procurement processes. (Our medium-term goal was ‘how to sell the best ideas for solving these problems’.) Key is to understand how your medium-term goal aligns with NR strategy and priorities to ensure buy-in increase your chances of success.
- The long-term goal captures the strategic goal of how we want stations of the future to run, influencing the aims and objectives set for stations. It is likely that achieving this vision requires behavioural, cultural and process changes. (Our vision is to create the ‘business as usual (BAU) of tomorrow’ – one in which innovation is normal practice and trialling solutions in live station environments BAU.) The tactical solutions and incremental changes of the short- and medium-term help build towards achieving the long-term vision.
- Be clear to senior leadership about what you are going to deliver and ensure that as things shift or change , they continue to be informed and consulted.
A helpful set of questions to understand and articulate why a SIZ is the right project for your station can be found on page 6 of the following Better Transport report
It can be challenging to gain support and assurance from parts of the industry that are ingrained in a culture of demonstrating hard commercial viability or operational resilience. Return on investment estimates are unknown, making it more difficult to argue for the value of investing budget.
This playbook does not cover, in detail, how to run trials. To get support on how to run trials, please look at our trial plan guidebook.
Who is this playbook for?
The railways have a simple task – to move people and goods safely and on time. To run an effective railway requires a wide team of many stakeholders and players in the railway industry, including TOCs, ROSCOs, FOCs, the ORR, RAIB, RSSB, BTP, Transport Focus, suppliers as well as many national and regional governing bodies. This can make it incredibly difficult for small and medium sized enterprises to gain access to the rail environment to innovation and develop their ideas.
This playbook is for all relevant stakeholders that work together to set up and a run a Station Innovation Zone (SIZ)
Innovation does not happen in isolation. As such, Innovation in rail does not only involve Network Rail (NR) but other stakeholders such as regulatory bodies, standards bodies, innovation organisations, delivery groups, Train Operator Companies (TOCs) and commercial partners and suppliers.
Using this playbook allows you to take an informed approach to innovating in stations. As similar initiatives are identified across the UK (and overseas), we will aim to develop a community of practice to share learning and align purpose.
This playbook does not cover, in detail, how to run trials. To get support on how to run trials, please look at our trial plan guidebook.
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