The document provides a summary of the FuTRO supplier launch event held on May 1st, 2013. Over 100 delegates from the supply industry attended to learn about FuTRO and participate in workshops. Key presentations provided the strategic context for FuTRO, outlined FuTRO's vision of optimizing traffic regulation over the next 30 years, and emphasized that FuTRO's challenges will include gathering train and infrastructure data, creating optimization algorithms, and balancing human and automated control. Delegates then engaged in breakout sessions to discuss challenges around meeting customer needs, optimizing system performance, human and automatic control, and dealing with data.

1. Report on FuTRO supplier launch event
1st May 2013

3. Table of Contents
Report on FuTRO supplier launch event – 1st May 2013 ...............1
FuTRO supplier launch event ................................................................ 1
Executive summary..................................................................................................1
What is FuTRO? ......................................................................................................2
What was the FuTRO launch event? .......................................................................2
Plenary presentations ........................................................................4
Strategic context for FuTRO ....................................................................................5
Vision of FuTRO.......................................................................................................5
FuTRO in the longer term ........................................................................................6
Question and answer panel .....................................................................................7
Open innovation breakouts ...............................................................8
Open innovation approach .......................................................................................9
Challenge 1 - Meeting customer needs ..........................................10
Challenge 2 - Optimising system performance .............................13
Challenge 3 - Human and automatic control .................................16
Challenge 4 - Dealing with data ......................................................18
Conclusion - The day in a picture ...................................................22
Appendix 1 - Background reading ..................................................24
Appendix 2 - Verbatim breakout cards ...........................................25

5. RSSB 1
Report on FuTRO supplier launch event – 1st
May 2013
FuTRO supplier launch event
Executive summary On the 1st
May 2013, the FuTRO vision of the future of traffic
regulation on the railway was launched by the RSSB at the British
Library in London. Over 100 delegates from the supply industry
came to hear about FuTRO and to take part together in a series
of 30-minute workshops. The aim was to begin the process of
engaging a wider population with the often radical innovation that
FuTRO will demand, and to ask where, beyond its traditional
boundaries, the industry might look for such innovation and
technology development.
Delegates heard three keynote addresses (summarised here),
and then considered a series of questions designed to open up
the innovation space. The questions and a selection of the most
significant responses they generated are outlined in the second
half of this report, which captures some strong alignment around
a number of themes.
The event was also amplified live over the web and other social
media, creating a web-based record that can be found at
www.amplified10.com/futrouk. Presentations, videos, tweets, and
other material from the event are all available on the site.

6. FuTRO supplier launch event
2 RSSB
What is FuTRO? Understanding and managing the placement and movement of
trains is fundamental to the operation of a safe and efficient
railway. The industry calls this process ‘regulation’. FuTRO:
Future Traffic Regulation Optimisation, is an ambitious
programme of exploration and innovation, that is part of the UK’s
Rail Technical Strategy 2012 (the RTS). FuTRO is concerned
with how the regulation of trains on the railway must change,
adapt and improve, starting today, and up to 30 years into the
future.
At the launch of the RTS in December 2012, Steve Yianni, Chair
of the Technical Strategy Leadership Group (TSLG), described
FuTRO as the ‘single most important initiative’ related to enabling
the future railway. It impacts all of the so-called ‘4Cs’, significantly
reducing Carbon and Cost, whilst simultaneously raising Capacity
and Customer satisfaction.
The scope of FuTRO is therefore very wide, and includes many of
the different aspects and systems involved in creating and
delivering a positive end-to-end experience on the network.
The innovation to deliver this vision is expected to come from an
equally wide range of sources, including the physical and
biological sciences, all types of engineering, system design, and
the human/social sciences. Inspiration from outside the traditional
rail supply industry is seen as key to FuTRO’s success. Insights
and technology from related and unrelated fields are therefore
being actively sought.
What was the FuTRO
launch event?
On 1st May 2013, a major industry event was held at the British
Library in London. Delegates were invited mainly from the supply
industry and academia, but there were also representatives from
inside the rail industry. The result was a vibrant mix of attendees
that included representatives from the Train Operating
Companies (TOCs), Network Rail (NR), suppliers of products and
services to the industry, research and development organisations
and academia. The specialisms represented included
optimisation, train control, algorithm development, centralised
network control and intelligent automated traffic management
systems.
With a mixture of presentations from senior rail industry people
and interactive workshops, the day explored the aims of the
FuTRO programme, its challenges, the industry context, issues

7. RSSB 3
surrounding the migration path over thirty years, and future
funding opportunities.
The event began with a plenary overview of FuTRO for those
unfamiliar with its aims and ambitions. Presentations from senior
rail industry managers helped to set the scene, and to raise
expectations. Delegates then had the opportunity to get involved
in the discussions through a series of four workshop sessions –
each exploring a different aspect of the rapidly emerging FuTRO
programme of innovation for the next 30 years. The event
concluded with a networking lunch, with many attendees staying
well into the afternoon to continue the discussions they had
started earlier in the day.

8. FuTRO supplier launch event
4 RSSB
Plenary presentations
The day began with a set of plenary presentations, a full video
record of which is available on www.amplified10.com/2013/05/
livestream-of-the-plenary-sessions/.
The talks began with an introduction from James Hardy, Head of
Strategy Support at RSSB, who welcomed attendees, outlined
the agenda for the day, and then offered a brief introduction to
‘open innovation’, an important theme for the event.
Whilst there are many ways to interpret what ‘open innovation’
means to different people and groups, James confirmed that for
our purposes, we take the idea to mean simply: ‘Innovating with
partners, sharing both risk and reward’.
As a further subtext, there is an implication and an
encouragement to cast the innovation net wider than might
otherwise be the case, to include partners who might operate in
related fields, or indeed in apparently unrelated fields. Experience
has shown many positive examples of inspiration and innovation
originating from initially unlikely combinations of expertise.
James explained to delegates that the open innovation parts of
the events’ agenda were to be facilitated by innovation
consultants, 100%Open (www.100open.com), that the day’s
proceedings (including slides) would be captured and broadcast
to the web by social media experts, Amplified
(www.amplified10.com/futrouk and Twitter #futroUK), and that a
resident artist would capture the spirit of the day in a mural. He
then introduced the first of the three plenary speakers who would
set the scene for the event.

9. RSSB 5
Strategic context for
FuTRO
Steve Yianni, Chair of Technical Strategy
Leadership Group (TSLG)
Steve positioned FuTRO in its strategic context as part of the Rail
Technical Strategy 2012 (RTS). He reminded delegates of what
he had said at the launch of the RTS, that he considered FuTRO
to be the most important part of RTS, and confirmed that he still
believes that to be true.
Steve then showed delegates two short videos: Introducing the
Rail Technical Strategy 2012 (www.futurerailway.org/RTS/Vision/
Pages/On-Video.aspx) and Bringing the Rail Industry Vision to
Life (www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWCRny4ufYM). He made the
point that it is important to understand FuTRO and the RTS as
being about the big picture; the whole system.
Steve finished by introducing the Rail Technical Strategy
Leadership Group (TSLG), and outlining its aims and programme.
He reminded delegates that it’s about the next 30 years, longer
than the current franchise lengths. He emphasised the huge
financial opportunities in both cost savings and potential revenue
increases, that could be unlocked by the doubling in capacity that
FuTRO offers.
He then handed over to Ed Rollings.
Vision of FuTRO Ed Rollings, Head of Signals and Telecoms,
Network Rail
Ed began by emphasising very clearly to delegates what FuTRO
is not. ‘It’s not today’s railway, and it’s not today’s technology’.
Instead, it’s an ambitious vision of an integrated system to fit more
trains onto the network by managing traffic optimally – meaning
both efficiently and safely. It’s also about sustainability
(‘environmentally positive’) and about delivering a flexible,
scalable capability.
Today’s technology is, in Ed’s words, a ‘jumping off point’ for the
future. Tomorrow’s technology will be about end-to-end journey
management, including integration with other modes of transport,
and will take in not only normal operations, but condition
monitoring and perturbation management. It’s about a
‘personalised journey experience’.

10. FuTRO supplier launch event
6 RSSB
In Ed’s view, FuTRO’s challenges will include gathering data on
trains and infrastructure, the creation of real-time optimisation
algorithms, decision dissemination, designing for resilience, and
achieving the right balance between human influence and
automation.
Ed made a strong point that we are in a position to influence
European work on traffic management, by acting quickly. He then
introduced the final key note speaker of the morning, Clive
Burrows.
FuTRO in the longer
term
Clive Burrows, FirstGroup
Clive dug deeper into what FuTRO represents by working through
a detailed use-case, beginning with today’s Standalone Driver
Advisory System (DAS) that provides optimum speed
recommendations to optimise energy and efficiency, but not
capacity, and showing how it could migrate towards a fully
automatic system. He explained how Standalone DAS could be
developed to provide a Connected DAS capable of updating train
speeds in real time, and considering what he called an algorithmic
approach to train control and management. A critical issue, he
suggested, is to exchange waypoint data and target times – this
is the core part of any Rail Traffic Management System (RTMS)
he argued.
Clive gave a further example of optimisation, explaining that the
number of trains that can run on a line is limited by the
electrification capacity. However, by simply co-ordinating train
movement to avoid the unlikely and unnecessary scenario of all
trains accelerating maximally at the same time, more trains can
be run on the same line without increasing electrical capacity.
Safety critical migration will also be needed according to Clive.
Trains will need to determine where they are and this will need to
be reflected in the fixed infrastructure. ERTMS Level 3 is all about
trains determining their own positions. He sees a time in the future
when an automated system will give movement permissions, and
traffic management will be used to optimise gaps between trains.
Then, he made the point that we currently have ‘huge gaps’
between trains because they don’t get information from the train
in front. However, if trains shared information, the distance

11. RSSB 7
between trains could be dramatically reduced, to the point where
they are almost running together.
Finally, Clive also suggested that there are things we can learn by
transferring technologies from other areas. He mentioned
learning from metro-type railways as an example. He summarised
by explaining that he is looking for ‘stepping stones into the
future’.
Question and answer
panel
Steve Yianni, Ed Rollings, Clive Burrows
The plenary phase of the programme concluded with a short
panel session in which members of the audience were invited to
ask questions of the earlier speakers.
The first question was about whether rail customers (passengers
and freight) are represented on the TSLG. Steve Yianni confirmed
that there is representation from Passenger Focus, the
independent body who protect the interest of rail passengers.
A further question asked where the financial benefits of FuTRO
will be found. Steve confirmed that there is a clear business case
involving the financial benefits for the changes he talked about in
his presentation. He also said that FuTRO can help to implement
these efficiency changes and maintain high levels of safety. Ed
Rollings reminded the audience that a capacity increase can
deliver financial benefits, and that while there will be cost savings
there will also certainly be revenue generating opportunities.
Subsequent questions focussed on the relationship between the
optimisation of the rail system and the commercial arrangements,
both between rail companies and with other modes of transport.
The panel agreed that a lot more ‘joined-up thinking’ was needed
– a perfect lead into the next part of the agenda.

12. FuTRO supplier launch event
8 RSSB
Open innovation breakouts
Having completed the plenary sessions, delegates were invited to
attend any two of four parallel breakout sessions. Each 30-minute
session was tasked with addressing a different challenge, each
challenge having three related sub-questions.
Attendees at each breakout were split at random into three
groups of about eight people; each group was tasked with
answering a single sub-question from that breakout’s particular
challenge. Delegates had to work together, producing their output
on cards that were later displayed on large posters for all
attendees to see over lunch, and whose main messages are
summarised here.
To try to address any of these challenges properly in just 30
minutes is clearly an impossibility. Instead, the intent was to allow
delegates to begin the process of engaging with FuTRO, to
explore the kinds of questions it will ask and answer, and to
experience for themselves how working together with others,
even for a short period, lends a new and different dimension to the
process.

13. RSSB 9
Open innovation
approach
Breakouts were facilitated by members of the consultancy
100%Open, and were designed to offer delegates a brief taste of
the open innovation approach that is viewed by RSSB and others
as vital to the on-going success of FuTRO.
In this context, ‘open innovation’ means ‘working with partners to
share risk and reward’. It often involves interactions between
parties who might not have previously worked together or even
considered themselves as likely partners, and it consciously
introduces new and occasionally even naive thinking as a
complement to received wisdom and experience.
The thoughts, insights and questions that were generated by this
process have been synthesised and summarised at a high-level
in the final sections of this report. The intent is to give readers a
flavour of the nature of the informal discussions that delegates
held in response to the challenges we issued. Readers interested
in the full output of the breakout sessions can find a verbatim
transcript of all of the cards produced by delegates in Appendix 2
of this report.
For each challenge, we describe the sub-questions, summarise
what the delegates discussed and wrote down, and show an
example card. Although everything that was said is valued, not
every comment is included in these summaries. Instead, a
maximum of three or four observations and comments from the
breakout sessions have been selected. Comments have been
chosen based on a number of criteria, including:
 Whether they were expressed more than once by different
respondents (areas of agreement)
 Whether they stand in contrast to the general consensus
(areas of disagreement)
 Whether groups included them in their verbal summaries at
the end of each breakout session
 The extent to which we can be confident about what was
being said by delegates (we do not want to put words into
their mouths based on sometimes unclear written notes on
the cards)
 The extent to which (in our opinion) individual comments are
likely to generate future insight and interest in engaging with
the Open Innovation aspects of FuTRO.

14. FuTRO supplier launch event
10 RSSB
Finally in each section, we share any additional comments on the
challenge based on wider thinking (reading and interviews) from
100%Open. In this way, we hope that the conversations which
began in these breakout sessions will represent not the canonical
final opinion of the group, but rather a fertile beginning of the
Open innovation programme on which the success of FuTRO
depends.
Challenge 1 - Meeting customer needs
This challenge was created to allow participants to explore the
dynamic two-way communication that will need to happen
between the railway industry and its customers (including
passengers and freight) over the coming decades. It was
composed of three inter-related questions, seeking answers from
different and overlapping angles.
The questions How will we understand the needs of passengers and freight
customers over the next 15-40 years?
In other words, if we’re attempting to understand how to design
new railway systems over that extended period, what tools and
approaches can we use today, to understand the set of
potentially nebulous and significantly changeable human
behaviours and desires over that extended period?
How will customers know what the railway is offering them,
both in advance and in real time?
While the previous question relates to how the railway might go
about understanding its customers’ needs, this question relates to
the reverse: how customers might understand what the railway is
offering. Importantly, this means not just in real time, for example,
‘When’s the next train to London?’, but also over time, for
example, ‘How good, these days, is the service from where I plan
to live to where I need to work?’.
How will the system design contribute to reducing passenger
stress and improving satisfaction?
This question recognises that customer satisfaction is not just
about performance metrics: what the railway actually does, but
also about emotional issues: how the railway does it. It asks how
customers could be made happiest, or least stressed, at any
given level of absolute performance?

15. RSSB 11
Delegates’ answers A common observation across all three questions in this
challenge was that any solution should be multi-modal. By this,
delegates meant that it should incorporate all transport modes
(bus, taxi, car, bike, walking, and so on), rather than treating rail
as an island. In a similar vein, it was also observed that any
attempt to understand customers’ needs should also take non-
passengers (what one delegate called ‘not yet passengers’) into
account.
The idea of a ‘Human SatNav’ or ‘Rail Angel’ was mentioned
several times across the sessions as a way to capture this multi-
modal aspect of future interaction with passengers. Several
delegates envisioned what it might be like to interact with this ‘all
knowing brain’ through multiple different channels. This notion
also embodies another recurring theme, that of interactions
between the industry and customers being personal and
personalised to each customer. At its most extreme, delegates
imagined a ‘pitch for the customer now’ model, in which
competing suppliers (of coffee as well as trains), might be able to
bid for customers’ immediate needs.
At least one group recognised the inherently linked and circular
nature of interactions between railway and customer, pointing out
that as the railway becomes more consumer-centric, so customer
expectations will themselves change. Another group recognised

16. FuTRO supplier launch event
12 RSSB
that people are changing independently of the railway, including
in ways related to their mobility and the space requirements they
may have whilst on board.
Another group observed that passenger communications could
also be used as a form of traffic management, by making sure that
passengers were directed in ways that responded to real-time
capacity.
Finally, a neat idea captured a way of re-inventing the relationship
between railway and passenger: ‘Buy the journey, not the ticket’,
recognises that for a passenger, it is the journey that matters.
Passengers should be guaranteed an arrival at their intended
destination. The ticket, a railway-centric view of the world, is
merely a means to an end.
Comment In only 30 minutes, delegates captured some of the most
important notions that this topic contains, and communicated
them compellingly. There are existing examples in other
industries of some of the characteristics identified by the groups
as desirable for rail: ‘personalisation’ being familiar from the best
e-commerce sites and ‘multimodal transport planning’ already
being offered at least by Google.
Delegates did tend to focus on trying to answer the questions
themselves, rather than thinking more broadly about who (outside
the room) might have a better answer. The question ‘How will we
understand customer needs?’, had delegates focussing on what
those needs might actually be, as opposed to the question of
where the tools and insights to gain such insights might come
from in a true open innovation context. Understanding human
needs, even long into the future, is a developed process in other
fields (such as marketing, retail and town-planning among many)
into which we could tap.
One way to analyse customer needs and communications could
be to divide them into three epochs:
 minutes and seconds - key questions related to real-time
needs, for example where a passenger needs to get to
today, and where the train which should have arrived on
platform 3 has got to
 days and weeks, - questions relate to longer-term but none-
the-less concrete needs

17. RSSB 13
 months and years - interactions relate more to perceptions
about performance and overall customer expectations. This
sort of analysis is also familiar from many industries.
The question of passenger stress is a key one. It relates strongly
to the notion of ‘experience design’, a practice that is very well
understood in other industries including retail, hospitality (hotels
and restaurants), and entertainment (shows, museums and
theme parks). Even in healthcare, the best hospitals are coming
to regard themselves as offering a human experience in addition
to medical healthcare. There are many opportunities to learn from
these fields, if we are able to gain access to them.
Challenge 2 - Optimising system performance
This challenge lies at the heart of FuTRO, and asks how, even if
everything else is in place, will we optimise the performance of the
network? In this context, ‘how’ means both ‘in what ways’ and ‘by
what mechanism’.
The questions What are the criteria of system performance that will be
important?
This question acknowledges the implicit assumption that we all
know what we’re talking about, and asks ‘are we sure?’
How will we develop tools, algorithms, cost functions,
timetables, and so on?
This is another ‘how’ question, asking not just what the
algorithms, cost functions, and other things might actually be, but
also how they will come to be.
What are the technical and commercial constraints on
performance? What are the alternatives?
This question suggests that there might be things in the existing
system, possibly hard to change, that will restrict our ambition,
and asks: ‘what are they?’.
Delegates’ answers Again, there was a strong sense of wanting to deal with a multi-
modal system, not just rail. There was recognition that for
practical purposes, the performance of the rail system in isolation
is not as important as customers’ experience of the performance
of the system, which necessarily includes the surrounding modes

18. FuTRO supplier launch event
14 RSSB
of transport. This came out strongly in a couple of places, with
delegates asking the rhetorical question ‘where are the
boundaries of the system?’
Everyone recognised and acknowledged that in this context,
optimisation is inherently about trade-offs. However, the expected
trade-offs, for example between carbon and convenience, are
hard. More importantly, delegates repeatedly asked the
questions, ‘who will make these trade-off decisions?’, and to a
lesser extent, ‘over what timeframe will they be made?’ In the
context of trade-offs, one group or individual asserted very
strongly (whether rightly or wrongly) that ‘if you maximise
capacity, you compromise safety.’
In the context of what is important, there was general
acknowledgement that the metrics of speed and punctuality, or
predictability, are distinct and different. The possibility was raised
that punctuality might be a more important metric for customers
than speed, and that it might be preferred in a trade-off between
the two.
When thinking about developing tools, algorithms, and other
intellectual machinery for optimising the performance of the
network, there was a recognition that collaborative approaches
and business models, for example with other transport modes,
would be important. There was also acknowledgement that
involvement and input from outside the industry would be helpful.

19. RSSB 15
Regarding the ultimate constraints on performance, most groups
focussed on the business structures, models and culture that are
in place today, and identified factors such as the lack of incentive
to share information, and the short tenure of some contracts, as
limits on optimisation. One group characterised the current
business structures as adversarial, and suggested that a
collaborative approach was needed instead. Another group
suggested that fragmentation should be turned into customer
choice with technology, although it is not clear what was meant in
more detail.
The only clear technical restriction that was raised related to
gauge: the restriction on the size of trains that is inherent in the
fixed infrastructure of tracks, bridges and platforms. Mention was
also made of the challenge and tension between a radical vision,
versus the step-by-step process that is needed to roll it out.
Comment Of the three questions in this challenge, it was the one on
constraints and limits to performance that attracted the strongest
response. Given the political, organisational and business issues
that were identified, it would be useful to think both about how
these issues could be worked around, or even taken advantage
of, as well as how and in what ways they might be changed over
time.
There was relatively little weight given by delegates to the
possible involvement of customers in determining the key
performance criteria, and some further wider engagement with
passenger and freight customers could potentially yield some
useful input in this area.
In general, optimisation is a widely-practiced process, with
expertise being available in related industries, for example
logistics and shipping, as well as in apparently unrelated
industries such as manufacturing. It is even possible that
inspiration might be drawn from much more widely distinct
domains, including biology and economics where, in both cases,
highly efficient and optimised systems sometimes emerge without
either central control or design. There is a lot of scope for open
innovation in sharing practises in this area.

20. FuTRO supplier launch event
16 RSSB
Challenge 3 - Human and automatic control
The exponential growth in the power of digital technology is a
familiar facet of today’s world. This ever-advancing technology
invites the possibility of ever-increasing automation. But is it a
given that everything that could be automated should be
automated? This challenge asked delegates to consider that
issue, by responding to three related and overlapping questions.
The questions Which things should be controlled automatically, which by
humans, and which in combination?
This question starts with the presumption that perhaps not
everything should be automatic, and then asks ‘if that is the case,
who should do what?’ Delegates were invited to consider
objectively which things computers are good at, and in what areas
humans still hold the edge. They also considered subjectively
which things might feel right for computers to handle and which
are more comfortable left to humans.
How can technology be used to support human decision-
making?
This question starts with the presumption that one possible
division of labour is to leave humans to make the decisions, with
technology providing the support. It asks, ‘what support could
technology offer?’.
What tools and interfaces will be needed between humans
and technology?
Once again, if humans and technology are to collaborate, how will
they communicate?
Delegates’ answers There was widespread consensus that a clear distinction between
automatic and manual control relates to the frequency and
repetitiveness of the task at hand. Computers, it was suggested,
are good at repetitive, predictable, planned things. Humans, on
the other hand, are best when events are rare, unpredictable or
completely unplanned. One delegate suggested that keeping
humans in the loop would be a vital way to deal with the ‘once
every ten years’ occurrences that, counter-intuitively perhaps,
seem all too common. In a related observation, one group found
that humans are better at making trade-offs and other soft
decisions.

21. RSSB 17
Another dimension contrasted customer experience, felt to be
better left to humans, against operations, felt to be more suitable
for automation. People, it was suggested, like to have human
contact, and like to believe that humans are in control, especially
in a crisis.
When it comes to technology supporting human decision making,
there was a sense that computers should provide a range of
options from amongst which a human might make a choice. More
than one group identified the challenge associated with
integrating (over time) different decision support systems.
In considering the ways humans and technology might interact,
delegates made use of analogies including the growth in remotely
piloted drone aircraft. They identified that remote control of trains
for example, offers a third-way between fully manual and fully
automatic operation. They also recognised that humans have at
least five senses, all of which can be used to communicate
information of appropriate sorts between technology and humans.
Finally, it was observed that the change to ever-more automated
systems should itself be managed as a journey, allowing all
involved to become familiar and comfortable at each stage of
progress, before the next is attempted.

22. FuTRO supplier launch event
18 RSSB
Comment A significant proportion of the entire history of computing relates
to how humans can make use of computers to amplify their
brains, from the very earliest code-breaking computers during
WWII to the artificial intelligence systems of the present day.
Questions about where the relative strengths of humans and
technology lie have been considered for many years. Although
technology advances continually and rapidly, humans change
only slowly, allowing relatively long-lived principles to emerge.
There is therefore a rich and diverse set of disciplines outside the
rail industry, including decision-support systems, computer-
supported co-operative working, the social sciences and others,
that could inform this area as part of an open innovation
approach. Users of such technology are equally as diverse,
including everyone who has ever used a spreadsheet, every
commercial or military aircraft pilot, military planners, economists,
and many others. Indeed, it has been observed in the aviation
industry for example, that for many years, things that are
inherently dangerous such as landing in fog, have been routinely
left to technology.
The existence of this expertise makes the area of automation a
key domain that the rail industry could avoid duplicating. Instead
the industry could seek ways to benefit from and ultimately to
contribute to the significant investment in expertise made in these
other sectors.
Challenge 4 - Dealing with data
This final challenge deals with perhaps the most fundamental
starting place for FuTRO’s ambition, that of knowing what’s going
on. It is frequently observed that ‘you can’t manage what you can’t
measure’; the questions in this challenge sought to explore and
inform some details of what it might take to measure the many
things, knowledge of which will be valuable or essential to
FuTRO’s vision.
The questions How is data to be sensed, collected, communicated,
processed, stored and displayed?
This question seeks to inform the basic challenges as described.
It presumes the future vision of a widespread, pervasive sensing
network, together with means to communicate and make sense of
all the data so collected, and asks simply, ‘How?’

23. RSSB 19
How are the vulnerabilities and threats to integrity and
security to be addressed?
This question raises two of the most common concerns relating to
any sort of distributed system. It invites comment both on what the
vulnerabilities and threats might be, and how the designers and
operators of the future railway might respond to such concerns.
What standards are relevant and how are they to be
managed?
If we are imagining a future state in which the open exchange of
information plays a key part, and the presumption is that we are,
then we must consider the role of standardisation in how data is
exchanged, stored, and so on.
Delegates’ answers In considering how data might be collected and processed,
delegates recognised a number of important issues. These
included that the overall picture is likely to be composed of data
coming from disparate sources, meaning that a premium should
be placed on cross-industry collaboration. Equally, such data
sources may overlap, requiring integration. Another group
identified that overlapping (duplicate) data represents a valuable
way to measure and ensure the integrity and security of the
information.

24. FuTRO supplier launch event
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Not all data needs to be directly and primarily sensed by the
railway. One group highlighted the use of information from mobile
phone networks as an implicit source of information about what is
happening on the railway, as well as commenting that mobile
phones themselves are full of sensors.
It was also observed that the ownership of data is a key issue, and
that there is an additional question about which data should be
made open, and which restricted.
Echoing a common theme across challenges, it was recognised
that what it means for data to have integrity and security is not
clearly defined. Importantly, in this context, it was suggested that
this means that such definitions may change over time, implying
that any technology infrastructure should be designed with such
possible change in mind.
In further considering how threats to integrity and security might
be addressed, one group asked the question, ‘how would the
industry respond if such a compromise occurred?’. This carried
the implication that planning in advance for such an undesirable
but perhaps inevitable eventually would be a ‘good idea’.
It was suggested that standards for data should be derived from
outside the rail industry, perhaps from the financial or military
domains, allowing data interchange and the sharing of
technology. Echoing an earlier point, it was further suggested that
standards should be designed to change as customer
expectations and technology changes. Finally, one group
suggested that standards should include moral standards relating
to data sharing.
Comment This is an area that is full of possibilities, and where there is very
significant work in other sectors. Technology for distributed
sensor networks is being developed in many industries including
logistics, farming, manufacturing, automotive, aviation, energy,
housing and anywhere, in fact, where valuable assets are
distributed around the environment. This technology, and the
techniques that accompany it, are often included under the
increasingly common cross-industry banner of the Internet of
Things.
Delegates identified the possibility of data coming from
unexpected sources, and this thought could be pursued further.

25. RSSB 21
Mobile phone data from the network and from the phone itself is
a potentially very rich source. Nearly every passenger on every
train is carrying a device that contains six or more sensors
(location, acceleration, sound, light, and so on), and the means to
communicate sensor measurements. More generally, in our
connected world, measurements of many things can be used to
indirectly infer information about many others, creating yet more
opportunities for open innovation.
The collection of a rich picture of what is going on is itself also a
great opportunity for openness. By aggressively pursuing a
presumption of data sharing, the industry could catalyse
innovation from the many enthusiastic third parties (app writers,
for example) who fill gaps and provide services wherever data is
made available. This has already happened with aviation data,
and on the London Underground, and represents a further
potentially valuable resource for FuTRO and the future railway in
general.

26. FuTRO supplier launch event
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Conclusion - The day in a picture
Delegates came to the FuTRO launch day to hear about FuTRO,
to meet each other, and to experience a little of the open
innovation approach that will be part of delivering the whole story.
Once the breakout sessions were complete, delegates gathered
again briefly for a feedback session, followed by a networking
lunch. Many delegates stayed on to talk and to debate further.
Throughout the day, 100%Open’s lead designer had been on
hand to act to act as resident artist. He captured the spirit of the
day in a large mural drawn on the window of the main conference
room at the British Library. The full image can be seen at
www.amplified10.com/futrouk.
With the day behind us, we can begin the process of
understanding what delegates said and asked. We can also
summarise the four key open innovation themes that emerged,
and give them names:

27. RSSB 23
Monitor How will we know what’s happening on the rail system, both in
real time and over time? What can we either measure directly, or
infer from other sources?
Involve How will we engage and interact with customers, understanding
what they need, telling them what’s available, and including them
as one of our sources of innovation?
Optimise How will we introduce new ways to decide what should happen on
the rail system, again in real time and over time? Who will control
what: man or machine?
Guide How will the railway industry, its customs, procedures, regulations
and culture need to evolve to both support and allow the full
FuTRO vision to emerge?
We propose these four open innovation themes (Monitor, Involve,
Optimise and Guide) as the core of FuTRO's engagement
strategy. We are developing each one into a detailed innovation
pathway, leading to a concrete vision for the year 2042. We hope
that many different innovators will now join this journey; their
contributions being both coordinated and connected by our open
innovation themes.

28. FuTRO supplier launch event
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Appendix 1 - Background reading
 Readers who are less familiar with the rail industry may be
interested in the following documents that contain more
detailed information on many of the topics covered in this
report. All are available by searching the web for report title,
or directly accessing the website concerned.
 THE FUTURE RAILWAY – The industry’s Rail Technical
Strategy 2012, TSLG
 Enabling innovation in the rail industry, RSSB
 Enabling technical innovation in the GB rail industry –
barriers and solutions, prepared for RSSB by Arthur D Little
Ltd
 Our Railway’s Future, Network Rail
 National Passenger Survey (bi-annual report), Passenger
Focus
 www.rssb.co.uk
 www.futurerailway.org
 www.networkrail.co.uk
 www.atoc.org
 www.riagb.org.uk
 www.dft.gov.uk
 www.rail-reg.gov.uk/

29. RSSB 25
Appendix 2 - Verbatim breakout cards
What follows is a verbatim transcription of the cards generated in
the various breakout sessions of the FuTRO launch event. Each
bullet point records the content of a single card. A very few
changes have been made for clarity, when this would be lost
through the transcription process. An equally small number of
hard-to-read words have been marked as [sic], or in severe cases
omitted from the transcript as unreadable.
Challenge 1: Meeting
customer needs
Q1. How will we understand the needs of
passengers and freight customers over the next
15-40 years?
 Research into future travel patterns and all the factors that
will influence them. Psychology. Working Practices.
Multimodal
 Information architect. Looking broadly, political, economic,
social, technological & organisational factors. Chunk up
future projections 15 years, then 30 years, 40 years.
Different levels of certainty. Need to talk to those groups as
much as possible, identifying themes. Market research.
 Research all existing available relevant data
(demographics, wider economy…) and make it available to
rail. Remember: think about ‘not yet’ customers, not those
who use rail today; system needs to be flexible to respond
to future unforeseen needs; the act of making the railway
more consumer-centric will itself generate new needs.
 MyNeeds. Political, society, demographic, economic,
technological, geographical, landscape. Crowd-sourced
information.
 (1) Create a multi-modal learning system and use intelligent
information for train planning (flexible, meet demand). Total
learning system.
Q2. How will customers know what the railway is
offering them, both in advance and in real time?
 Personal info/learning from usage – direct to passenger and
intermodal. The ‘system’ will know you!
 MyJourney. Real time. Single trustworthy source of info. To
the right person in the right format. Mobile. For my journey.
 Massively interactive human satnav. Google intermodal
transport apps. One universal system, baseline – add on

30. FuTRO supplier launch event
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service menu/needs. Interactive, real-time, human, sat-nav.
Rail, road, foot, tube, stations, offers, TM system, informs of
new route.
 Central brain (which manages scheduling on trains)
directing passengers depending on capacity / disruptions
etc. This would include data push (PIDD), apps for journey
planning (personalised schedule), delivery of schedules in
advance.
 How information is offered is not the issue – any available
channel. Research to develop and keep up-to-date what
customers WANT to know. [Nature and quality of
information]
Q3. How will the system design contribute to
reducing passenger stress and improving
satisfaction?
 Buy the journey, not the ticket. Consistency of journey
service. Confidence/trust.
 Deliver pertinent, consistent, personalised journey
information in a timely manner – live. And tell me what to do
next. U-Rail.
 Sat Nav Rail Angel: (1) Real-time intelligence of space/
capacity. (2) Have satnav that allows you to set the criteria
and advises you on the costs. (3) Tells you where you are.
 Human needs focus. Time, punctuality, energy, Quality of
service. Customer-centred algorithms for success / perfect
system, not just simple assumptions of e.g. punctuality.
Advanced info system to customers. Transparency / making
data available. Standardised info at stations, individualised
elsewhere.
 Customer-centric studies to understand stress-drivers.
Customer needs and information provision taken on board
in designing system to offer simple, reliable, consistent,
predictable and regular services. Inter-modal. Loosely
federated systems.
 Real-time system behaviour at a point in time. Pitch for the
customer now! Live availability, live privileges. Sci-fi
thinking – future possibilities. Passengers needs haven’t
changed over 50 years. Fatter, heavier, less mobile people.
Listen to social media. Visibility of problems, infrastructure.
Poll them, ask them. End-to-end journeys. Carborail [sic?]
Premium price / journey time / comfort.

31. RSSB 27
Challenge 2:
Optimising system
performance
Q1. What are the criteria of system performance
that will be important?
 Reliability and consistency. Measures of certainty. Flow.
Multi-modal models. Resilience of whole network. De-
centralised. Real-time information. Reacts to customer
demand short-term and long-term and socio-economic.
 Trains on time. Safety & Capacity & Sustainability & Costs.
 Cost, Carbon, Capacity, Customer Experience! + Reliability
+ Integration performance with the rest of transport +
Flexibility for different needs.
 System is whole transport system, not the railway.
 Outcome-based criteria – demand led by customers and
business models. Flexibility to deliver all needs.
 How do we define the boundaries of the system?
 Trade-off between performance and environment and
capacity. These three criteria are potentially mutually
exclusive.
 Encourage modal transfer to rail. No timetable – real time
adaptive service levels. Learning systems. Criteria: open
information availability; Capacity where and when it is
needed (turn up and go); Safety; Optimising customer
expectations, certainly of knowing what is happening. Who
is the customer?
 A measure of performance = could the customer use the
information provided to them to complete their planned
journey?
 We need a portfolio of measures that represent the interests
of stakeholders. Eg reliability of trains and infrastructure.
Timely and accurate information.
 How to evaluate extremes (is 2x5 = 1x10?). How to trade
among the 4 c’s. How to customer experience vs CO2.
Economic or political business case. Relative safe
following. Track plates for safety. Hierarchy. Plan to deliver
bottom up.
 Criteria of system performance: time (of journey); cost
(value for money); quality/reliability; safety; sustainability.
All of these from a customer’s perspective.

32. FuTRO supplier launch event
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Q2. How will we develop tools, algorithms, cost
functions, timetables, and so on?
 Develop all tools etc based on a demand-led framework –
transport and mobility needs.
 Collaboratively – business models; data-sharing; with eg.
taxi operators.
 University research. Better industry and academia
engagement. Look at other sectors / different industries.
(Catapult, RRUKA)
Q3. What are the technical and commercial
constraints on performance? What are the
alternatives?
 If you maximise capacity you compromise safety. An
algorithm based on traffic (freight / high-speed), type,
speed, braking coefficients – all data is not created equally.
The COST of real-time. Technology, model, sensing,
computer capacity, model availability, trade-off to vohe [sic].
What are the incentives for sharing data with stakeholders
(eg TOCs with NR)? Mobile operators. Contract
DURATION, revenue model. How to scale and generate
revenue. Barriers to entry – IP. Rail network infrastructure is
a constraint. Mobile phones are optimised for road not rail.
 Turn fragmentation into customer choice with technology.
Eg data sharing.
 Risk & reward re-thinking. No whole system approach yet.
 Money flow? Change of culture / industry structure.
 Cyber security.
 Gauge/track constraints. Is a different traffic-management
approach sufficient to meet capacity needs? There is a
duplication of investment in different parts of industry
seeking the same prize? Conflict with objective to cut costs.
Reduced risk and hassle of comechans [sic]. Optimised for
WHO? Link from social media to optimisation?
 Structure of industry. Need collaborative structure. Current
structure is adversarial.
 Optimum criteria. Short vs long-term. Local vs system.
Benchmarks.
 Tension between radical vision and step-by-step art of the
currently possible.

33. RSSB 29
 Start from benchmark problems. Open access simulations.
Apply existing algorithms to benchmark problems to
understand which algorithms good/bad for which problems.
 4C’s (Customer / Carbon / Cost / Capacity). Vision/strategy/
tactics. Trade-off between simplicity/support in real-time.
The focus could change during the day even. Optimising by
what criteria? In what timeframe? Long-term or minute-by-
minute?
Challenge 3: Human
and automatic
control
Q1. Which things should be controlled
automatically, which by humans, and which in
combination?
 Trade-offs good for humans. All things can be run by
computer. No procedure – human good. People good at
interactivity. Subjectivity vs objectivity. Human touch – say,
illness. Computers are dumb. Random events better for
<unreadable>. Tsunami Japanese nuclear.
 From customer experience perspective more human
control/responsive -> demand responsive railway.
Operations -> less human, more automation.
 Automate back-office systems. Automate what is
predictable/reliable. Maintain human for unplanned, major
events.
 Under normal conditions computers can do nearly
everything they are programmed [to do]. Under extreme
conditions (humans). Humans can look at trade-offs and
compromises. Under full automation procedure can be used
to mitigate risk. Computers not good at interacting with
people (human touch).
 People like to have human contact even tough can be
automated must have both for consumer facing services. If
automate everything what is the impact to the economy –
leisure time for all…
 Automatic control – repeatable and predictable. Decision
support to humans. Things that only happen every ten years
plus and need a level of intelligence that only humans can
provide.

34. FuTRO supplier launch event
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Q2. How can technology be used to support
human decision-making?
 Two main focus areas: drivers; signalling; (maintenance).
Distinguish between managing errors versus violations.
Technology/automated systems for normal and predictable.
Human interaction when needed. Culture – manage change
[to automated systems] gradually.
 Technology should offer a range of options to the human.
 Need to provide training for normal operation and failure
situations.
 Which humans? Train operators, customers/passengers,
maintainers, infrastructure operators. Reducing the human
reliance? –only in emergencies. –automate to reduce
errors.
 Its about integrating the different decision support systems
– engineering, commercial and operational. Also there is a
risk of automating everything! Hudson River air incident.
Q3. What tools and interfaces will be needed
between humans and technology?
 User interface technology – voice? Touch? Head up
display? Passenger demand? Can this be more direct, eg.
ultra prt at Heathrow T5 or voting mechanism. Unenclosed
railway = no driver? Or do detection systems mean no driver
required? Remote supervision eg. drones, control centre.
 How to provide passengers directly with an interface with
the traffic management system – Passengers can make/
influence decisions.
 Simple and intuitive ways of communicating to passengers
to actively manage capacity.
 Transparency or operating decisions such as connections.
How can passengers have confidence about decisions
made to help them that don’t know have been made?
 Centralised control strategy from the start. Adaptive,
resilient, automation. ‘ENE’ following control.
Rationalisation of ‘pertinent timely data’. Ref Dutch
healthcare R&D: tactile sensory input. Move away from
response to alarms as poor decisions!
 Remote supervision -> Air Drone.
 Inform operator of outcomes.
 How do we integrate different decision-making [support?]
systems?

35. RSSB 31
Challenge 4: Dealing
with data
Q1. How is data to be sensed, collected,
communicated, processed, stored and displayed?
 Integrate data to create information. Harmonise disparate
systems.
 Instrumentation and sensing. Instrument as much as you
can. Survey inc passenger and goods instrumentation.
Social networks. Mobile signals. Etc.
 Communicate: right frequency – real time; near real time;
signal vs noise. Multichannel to GSM-R. GSM using
commercial services. Enterprise service = treat as a stream
of data. Pushed out or personalised.
 Underpinning the question is the need for effective data
management / ownership. Who should be responsible for
what data? Setting of policies, understanding of costs &
benefits, ensuring collaboration.
 Security and safety. Only ensure the right people can
access the right data from source.
 Open IT architecture. Standard interfaces. Open-source
software. Formal methods.
Q2. How are the vulnerabilities and threats to
integrity and security to be addressed?
 Quality of data – cross correlation; sensor health; critical;
embedded intelligence.
 Integrity and security are NOT defined. Indeed the definition
will change according to the mechanism (sensor) being
addressed.
 Categories: Train separation; train position; timetable;
passenger origin / destination; infrastructures.
 Dataflows. Bandwidth. Continuity. Data fidelity. Delay/
interruptions.
 How would the railway system respond when data security
is compromised? Shut down? Back up system? Plan B?
 Is the data correct and timely? Measure the right thing.
 What data to make open / keep within industry.
 Process for FuTRO to follow: (1) Categorise data in/used by
the system; (2) Understand the threats/vulnerabilities
associated with the different types of data; (3) What are the
consequences of data being compromised? (4) What are
the safeguards/mitigations (look outside the rail industry);
(5) Need for on-going learning / keep abreast of emerging
thoughts.

36. FuTRO supplier launch event
32 RSSB
Q3. What standards are relevant and how are they
to be managed?
 Organisational and governance structures to enable
standards to adapt to changing technologies and customer
needs.
 Leveraging standard from financial and military for
timeliness and integrity of data. (as well as other transport
modes).
 Moral standards on acceptable use of private and customer
data.
 Balance with accessibility for valuable purposes.
 Start with whole system view of whole lifecycle. Manage it
just as a physical, valuable asset.
 Intrusion detection and cyber security becoming essential.
Defend against malicious DISTRUPTION attempt. Defence
against UNSAFE is a given.
 Common standard and protocols with other industries so as
to share toolsets and data/information.

38. RSSB
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