CIRO sets out operational agenda for Great British Railways

Forty percent of journeys in Great Britain will continue to be operated by non-GBR operators once Great British Railways takes shape, according to the Chartered Institution of Railway Operators (CIRO). That single figure underpins the institution's first Policy Panel paper, 'Locally empowered, nationally coherent – CIRO's operational agenda for Great British Railways', briefed in August by panel chair Ben Rule, Railway Operations Director at East West Rail.

The paper rests on four themes: local accountability within a national framework; empowered, well-trained people; clear, cascaded targets; and technology, data and interoperability.

Why does local devolution need a national framework?

Integrated Railway Business Units (IRBUs) are being formed as part of the GBR transition, pairing a regional infrastructure unit with a train operator taken into public ownership. CIRO calls IRBUs a positive step. But it insists GBR must still operate as one national system, because many trains will cross business unit boundaries and freight operators sit outside GBR altogether.

Rule cited three examples where network-wide thinking is unavoidable:

• Birmingham New Street, a multi-operator hub requiring staff from different business units to work as one station team.
• Thames Valley Signalling Centre at Didcot, which handles GWR, CrossCountry, Elizabeth Line, freight, SWR and Chiltern services.
• Train planning, currently split between operators and Network Rail, where decisions ripple across the whole network.

CIRO supports devolution but warns against replicating fragmentation in a new form. Rule noted that devolved authorities want both strong commuter services and long-distance connectivity, and pointed to Transport for London as proof that both can share the same tracks.

What cultural change do staff need?

Most railway staff have spent their careers in the fragmented privatised railway, taking decisions in the best interest of their own company. CIRO recommends a major programme of culture change and training, building on the whole-system ethos of its Professional Operators Development (POD) competency framework, so staff understand the consequences of decisions beyond their immediate environment.

While researching the paper, CIRO sought advice from veterans of British Rail. They described front-line teams that understood trade-offs across the wider network and took decisions confidently in the interests of the full range of customers.

How should targets be set?

The Government's ambition of 90% of trains no more than three minutes late (T-3), with 2% cancellations, provides welcome clarity for operators. But CIRO cautions that targets can negatively shape behaviour if translated carelessly. Empowered staff must know when to deviate — maintaining connections and getting passengers home after disruption are not always captured by punctuality statistics.

What about technology and data?

Rule noted a shared view that the industry has been slow to develop decision support tools for operators. Privatisation fragmented data ownership and created barriers to sharing, though he acknowledged significant recent improvements. GBR must remove incentives to keep revenue-based data secret from historic competitors, own the relevant data standards, and direct technology investment at operators' actual problems. CIRO's summary recommendation: national data standards, interoperable systems, shared data ownership and decision support tools that work across business units.

How should network access change?

Current path allocation processes give operators certainty through recognised rights, but CIRO argues they often produce rule-compliant yet suboptimal outcomes. The opportunity is to shift from allocating individual paths to making best use of network capacity — without replacing certainty with a less credible framework that disadvantages non-GBR customers. Rule praised Network Rail's System Operator for early work on a new access framework.

Freight, he stressed, must be treated as a core user, not marginal traffic competing for residual capacity. Capacity for growth, short-notice freight demand, seasonal variation and recovery contingency should be protected by policy even if not every theoretical path is used.

CIRO also flagged the contractual Schedule 4 (engineering access) and Schedule 8 (delay allocation) regimes, which can encourage a blame culture. Removing them outright would be problematic, so GBR needs equivalent arrangements that support the whole railway.

Can workforce efficiency deliver the cost targets?

Rule praised safety improvements but said efficiency has not improved, blaming short-termism, fragmented management and the absence of long-term workforce reform. With fixed-term franchises gone, GBR offers a consistent long-term approach. CIRO's research found an honest conversation with trade unions — who favour public ownership — is overdue. Rail Delivery Group's clearer traincrew management standards and the new Operational Leadership for Traincrew Managers training are steps in the right direction. Calls to unify terms and conditions will be very difficult and should not be an immediate priority.

CIRO's recommendations for GBR include:

• A national operating framework clarifying decisions across IRBU boundaries, freight flows and devolved interfaces.
• A national programme of operational leadership training prioritising control rooms and major interchanges.
• Clear national delivery targets cascaded to local teams, with local managers setting customer-focused objectives.
• A devolution and stakeholder governance framework ensuring fair treatment for passenger, freight and non-GBR operators.
• A transparent national access framework protecting freight capacity and reserving headroom for growth and resilience.
• A national technology and decision-support strategy focused on interoperability and real-time optimisation.
• Efficiency pursued through shared services, strategic workforce reform and union partnership.

Rule summarised: the railway must act as a single system, and people need the authority, tools, training and confidence to make good whole-system decisions. With much of the network running at little spare capacity, CIRO's paper opens a debate on trade-offs that, to date, has barely begun.