Market monitoring

Competition in the supply chains which support Great Britain’s railway services is essential if passengers and taxpayers are to receive a high-quality service at an efficient cost.

Network Rail spends nearly £1bn per year on signalling, and costs are rising.

Following an Office of Rail and Road (ORR) study on the state of the railway signalling market, the rail regulator has today published Network Rail’s response to increase competitiveness and lower costs in the market.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has found that competition needs to be improved in Great Britain’s railway signalling market particularly as new technologies are rolled out as part of Network Rail’s delivery of the Digital Railway programme. This follows completion of the first stage of our study into this important market. ORR intends to take action to address this issue.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has today opened a market study into the supply of rail signalling systems to ensure the signalling supply chain is fair and competitive.