The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has welcomed the progress made by the rail industry in adopting its recommendations for a more cost-effective approach to safety decisions. The recommendations, developed in collaboration with the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and Network Rail, are designed to help the industry make more evidence-based and consistent choices when weighing the costs and benefits of safety improvements.
Since the recommendations were published in March 2025, several key actions have been taken:
- Network Rail has rolled out internal guidance and a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) tool to ensure consistency in decision-making.
- RSSB has updated its own CBA guidance and tools, and created new training materials called “Taking Safe Decisions.”
- ORR has refreshed its own inspector training on risk assessment and CBA.
A Better Approach to Safety
Will Godfrey, ORR’s Director of Economics, Finance and Markets, said: “Better safety decision making will improve both the safety of our railway and maintain good value for money. As the joint economic and safety regulator, we can play a key role by working across both aspects of regulation to ensure the right outcome.”
Richard Hines, HM Chief Inspector of Railways and ORR’s Director of Railway Safety, said: “We welcome the significant work that RSSB, Network Rail and others have undertaken so far in responding to our recommendations. The test for industry now moves towards how these actions are implemented and we will be monitoring progress in this area before a final review in the spring.”
Marcus Dacre, RSSB’s head of risk and safety intelligence, said: “Our new Taking Safe Decisions e-learning modules, and resources to support safety-related cost benefit analysis have been well received, with over 250 participants from 50 organisations registering for the programme since its introduction. We are supporting our members to maximise the value of these resources, with several organisations incorporating the training into their learning platforms.”
Martin Frobisher, Network Rail’s safety and engineering director, said: “This important piece of work will help us to deliver affordable safety improvements to the railway. We have made good progress on these sensible recommendations and are already seeing positive results.”
In the coming months, the ORR will continue to monitor the use of the new training and tools ahead of a final review in March 2026. The regulator will also explore how this approach can be applied to other parts of the network, including heritage and metro operations.
