ORR’s approach to innovation

Innovation is primarily industry led, with ORR’s role being to ensure that the regulatory framework enables beneficial innovation rather than creating unnecessary barriers, while maintaining high standards of safety, value for money and performance.

We support innovation by incentivising efficiency and performance improvements, providing advice and regulatory flexibility, promoting competition, adopting an adaptive, risk-based regulatory approach and collaborating with other regulators and networks.

We also strive to innovate internally to better deliver our own work and reduce our regulatory burden.  

Innovation in safety and AI regulation

Our primary engagement around emerging government policy on safe AI innovation and regulation, specifically on ORR’s safety role, is through the quarterly UKHSRN AI & Innovation Sub-Group. ORR coordinates and provides the secretariat for this group.  

Over the past two years, in addition to our quarterly virtual meetings, we have hosted in-person workshops in our London office, to discuss the government’s ‘ask’ of regulators around AI and support the development of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) Regulators Capability Framework. Additionally, we have worked collectively and individually to draft and submit bids for funding, for example, peer sub-group regulators were recently successful in obtaining funding through the fourth round of the DSIT Regulators' Pioneer Fund.  

Through our work in the subgroup, we will be participating in a workshop facilitated by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) for data scientists to share work and exchange knowledge between regulators who are building AI tools and/or shaping the use of AI in their organisation.  

ORR data strategy

ORR’s internal Data Strategy was created in October 2023. It is supported by a range of related improvement projects.  

The data strategy sets out a vision for gaining maximum value out of data and insights – ultimately to improve outcomes for rail and road users. It aims to transform delivery in all these areas – improving effectiveness in our day-to-day operations and delivering real insights which can lead to better regulatory actions and decisions. It is arranged around six themes - Culture, Oversight, People, Tools, Engagement and Regulation.

Several projects which contribute to delivering the data strategy have already been completed including delivering a new data lakehouse, which supports us in automating data collection and reporting. This provides the capability to deliver future data analytics ambitions.

Technology strategy 2024 to 2028  

The development of our new three-year technology strategy ‘Empowering ORR through Digital Transformation’ has allowed us to better understand how technology can support the organisation’s needs. We have focussed on three objectives this year:

• Ttransformed systems: investing in integration and automation;
• Digital skills at scale:  training our staff to maximise the benefits of the new, more efficient administrative tools at our fingertips; and 
• Driving digital adoption: building a network of IT Champions who can champion digital change and support colleagues in accelerating digital readiness.

The Technology Strategy is supporting alignment of AI based projects from development and testing of Copilot agents through to interactions with our rail industry stakeholders when raising enquiries with us.

Digital innovation to improve our processes

One example of how technology and innovation is improving our processes is our new HR Helpdesk. It is intended to drive self-service and give managers insights into the types of queries coming from employees, identifying trends and potential improvements in communications.

We have improved the processes for issuing and renewing train driving licences by introducing a new online portal in 2025. More functions are now available directly on the portal, which will reduce administration costs for operators as much as possible within the current regulations.   Over the last decade or so, we have continued to invest in improving our portal’s functionality and users’ experiences based on survey feedback from operators. A prioritised programme of enhancements to the online licensing portal has been developed with discovery work having started in January 2026.

Our September 2025 report related to a review into our rail industry-facing service standards, outlines commitments to explore other areas where we can digitise to improve our processes. This includes the potential for a web-interface based submission process for access applications and/or appeals and exploring the potential to create a digital portal for Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems Regulations (ROGS) safety and authorisation applications and/or explore options to improve the ROGS guidance.  

Our safety role  

There is an ongoing focus on using technology to inspect the infrastructure.  This includes use of video analysis from train mounted cameras using AiVR (Automated Intelligent Video Review). AiVR applies machine learning to understand the context of the environment.  The information it captures includes location, hazards on or near the line, vegetation and the condition of the track and bridges, tunnels and viaducts. This improves safety by reducing the need for workers to go out on track and enables more effective and efficient maintenance of the infrastructure.  

ORR encourages the implementation of the European Train Control System (ETCS), as it provides a standardised, technology driven method of managing train operations that reduces reliance on human performance. The continuous speed supervision built into ETCS helps to eliminate many of the risks such as those associated with overspeeding incidents, thereby lowering the likelihood of derailment.

Competition  

ORR has a duty to promote competition in the provision of railway services for the benefit of users of railway services and to promote efficiency and economy on the part of persons providing railway services.

Competition is a key driver of innovation and efficiency. We use our market monitoring and competition powers to support market entry and investment which help encourage innovative service provision.

Our role with Network Rail  

We promote innovation by incentivising efficiency and performance improvements through its monitoring of how Network Rail spends innovation budgets.

• In 2023 during the periodic review process, we supported funding for innovation via Network Rail’s R&D budget. We challenged central functions in Network Rail to address their inefficient practices from previous control periods, where we saw expensive projects stalling, or products produced which were not adopted onto the railway.  
• During the 2018 periodic review process and funding settlement, we created the Performance Innovation Fund (PIF) which was a dedicated fund for Network Rail to support innovative projects aimed at improving passenger and freight performance. The 2023 periodic review process (PR23) Final Determination included £40 million for a train performance improvement and innovation fund (PIIF). PIIF is intended to kick-start collaborative, cross-industry solutions with the aim of improving train performance between train operators and Network Rail.  

We have published several deep-dive reports on innovation, including a Targeted Assurance Review (TAR) into barriers to adoption of new technology.  

As part of Network Rail’s plans to deploy European Train Control Technology (ETCS) across its Network, we are monitoring the delivery of its renewals and fleet fitment programmes as well as associated Research, Development and Innovation programmes such as the T190 and Speed Management Programmes. These are part of the Research & Development portfolio focused on the execution of the digital railway programme for the introduction of the European Train Control System (ETCS) - an upgrade to the traditional colour light signalling system. ETCS is a key engineering control for managing overspeeding on the network and reducing the risk of associated incidents on the infrastructure. We attend quarterly meetings in support of the long-term deployment plan and are visiting the Danish National Safety Authority to undertake benchmarking.  

In 2022, we undertook a site visit to Denmark to benchmark the electrification program of Banedanmark, the Danish infrastructure operator, with Network Rail. Banedanmark was identified as delivering an efficient and innovative electrification program. We wanted to understand Banedanmark’s operational experience and identify examples of best practice. The information gained helped us to be better informed to support and where necessary challenge Network Rail in their delivery of cost-efficient electrification projects.

Our role with National Highways  

The company is preparing for the start of the third road period (RP3) on 1 April 2026, following our Efficiency Review of National Highways’ draft Strategic Business Plan (dSBP). Through our monitoring and regulation we will continue to hold National Highways to account for its spending and delivery through the Innovation and Research Designated Fund and the benefits achieved.

We have appointed consultants to conduct a review of National Highways’ culture, approach, and processes to promote, incentivise and embed innovation, and evidence its benefits. This will help enable the company to use new and innovative products and processes to realise more efficient spending of public money, and to improve the SRN for the benefit of users.

Our role with London St Pancras Highspeed (on the HS1 network)  

During our 2024 periodic review, (PR24) we helped London St Pancras Highspeed (LSPH) and its stakeholders to improve the governance of its R&D funding, to ensure funds are used transparently and are always addressing the priority issues for the network. We now attend regular governance meetings, allowing ORR to provide advice at the right time, to the right people, to unblock difficult issues.  Also, we were able to share lessons learned from our regulation of Network Rail.