Published
In support of our current theme of radical uncertainty, Julian Ross – Head of programme integration at Network Rail – offers a series of three blog posts exploring uncertainty in the context of the rail industry, of which this is the second.
Is it possible for the UK’s railway to move beyond a defensive approach of building robustness through costly ‘predict and provide’ major projects, to a new strategy that develops organisational anti‒fragility and, over the long term, introduces anti‒fragility into the physical network and rolling stock?
What do I mean by this? In his famous discussion of Black Swan events, Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduces the idea of anti‒fragility, “Anti‒fragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same: the anti‒fragile gets better”.
At first sight this appears to be an extremely difficult idea to apply to an infrastructure‒based system such as the UK rail network, with its slowly‒evolving timetable, regionally‒based train fleets, and a fixed network which operates at capacity (and was, pre‒Covid‒19, over‒crowded in parts) during peak commuter periods.
But the UK’s railway faces an extended period of existential threat. The surge in home working, the growing popularity of electric cars, and the potential for autonomous road vehicles all threaten the railway’s revenue base. The railway needs to adapt, but the old linear forecast‒based approach is no longer fit for purpose. So, there is a strong case for rail planners to work out how the system can incorporate anti‒fragility.
To start this debate, I offer some thoughts on the kind of objectives, approach and behaviours anti‒fragile rail planning will entail.
Objectives include:
- Putting passengers and freight customers first, with every planning decision focussed upon meeting their needs in the most cost‒effective way
- Responding positively as a system to new commercial opportunities, for example to service growing markets like new housing and business developments, and to embrace mobility as a service
- Increasing connectivity, a notable deficiency hindering many UK cities and their surrounding towns, which can powerfully support the UK’s post‒pandemic economic recovery and longer‒term levelling‒up agenda
- Agile timetable changes to meet emerging needs, such as changing commuter patterns, and more demand for through trips, making train services more attractive
- Better use out of capital‒intensive assets, such as rolling stock, major stations, and electrification
- Improved financial performance, by increasing income, reducing cost per unit of output, and matching capacity to demand
- Supporting the UK’s Net Zero carbon target, by enabling modal shift at national, regional, and local levels.
Approach and behaviours include:
- Positive leadership, that encourages agile thinking across the industry and rewards proactive passenger and customer‒focussed action
- Providing mobility, not just travel, because mobility provides benefits, whereas travel itself will almost always be an overhead for travellers. This requires us to understand the real mobility needs of current and potential passengers and freight customers. And it includes embracing the accessibility needs of a diverse population
- Uncertainty is recognised and embraced, planners having a greater understanding of the potential quantity/quality/time/space shocks that I describe above. Constant change is accepted, and the false comfort of spuriously ‘accurate’ models rejected
- Calculated risks are taken, underwritten by the UK state, on the basis that the net gain from positive action is expected to be greater than the likely loss resulting from inaction
- ‘Bounded certainties’ are established. The industry must not be paralysed by uncertainty, so we will need to apply shaping strategies that define ranges of outcome to plan for
- Horizon scanning, to qualitatively anticipate incipient shocks, assess their potential magnitude, and consider how to respond
- Planning is benefit‒focused and seeks opportunities to benefit from shocks, looking to increase benefits to passengers and value to the economy as a result of underlying change, rather than simply being robust against change
- Planning is genuinely holistic, treating timetables, rolling stock, infrastructure, franchises or concessions, and operations as an integrated system.
Read Julian’s first blog ‘What if we all started working from home’, in which Julian explores what uncertainty and complexity mean for major projects.
In his final blog, Julian explores what all this might mean for the UK’s rail network in ‘Tomorrow’s railway …today’.
Julian Ross, Network Rail