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Rail Data Council

Introduction

The Rail Data Council was set up in late 2019 and was closed down in 2023, having achieved its objectives to better coordinate open access to the UK’s rail data.

Through monthly meetings and delivery initiatives the Council coordinated the definition of new standards for data use and a cross industry data sharing platform to allow easier access to industry data and, as a result, to promote innovation. The Council worked closely with RSSB’s DISIC group to confirm quality and standards for rail data across Great Britain.

girl looking at computer screenVision

The Rail Data Council’s vision is to:

The Rail Data Council’s vision was to:

Drive value in rail industry growth, efficiency and customer service through coordinated access to shareable data via an ecosystem of federated APIs and widespread adoption of advanced data analytics

Background

The Council was formed in Q4 2019 to align the work involved in delivering the commitments to two parallel industry-wide agreements around data. This intervention was designed to increase pace and avoid overlaps or conflict between data related projects. They were the Joint Rail Data Action Plan, agreed by RDG on behalf of the industry and the Rail Minister, and the data workstream of the Rail Sector Deal, agreed by the Rail Minister and the Rail Supply Group.

Membership

James Bain, CEO Worldline UK, was appointed as Chair of the Rail Data Council, representing the Rail Supply Group.

The Council members were: James Bain (Worldline, representing the Rail Supply Group), Aidan Hancock (Network Rail), Kanwar Brar (Go Ahead group), Hugh Clancy (First Group), Mark Ledbury (Department for Transport), Simon Moorhead (RDG), Karl Butler-Garnham (Network Rail), Ian McLaren (Govia Thameslink Railway), John Easton (UKRRIN), Liz Davies (RSSB).

mobile phone with dataKey Initiatives

The Rail Data Council initiated and oversaw two key initiatives:

Rail Data Marketplace

The intent of the Rail Data Marketplace was to promote the use of accessible data across the industry by making it easy for data providers to offer their data services to the industry, and making it easy for data consumers to find and subscribe to use these data services.  “The Rail Data Marketplace aims to simplify access to rail related data and open it up to a wider user base via a single access point with the aim of bringing together data sources and related services from across the industry and beyond.”

The Rail Data Council championed the concept of a data marketplace, achieved broad-based support for the initiative, secured joint funding to create the service and oversaw its development.

The Rail Data Marketplace (www.raildata.org.uk ) was formally launched in November 2023 and within its first year offered more than 140 data products to over 1,200 organisations and enabled 4,000 data sharing agreements.

Creating a framework for rail data

The Rail Data Council commissioned a study by a third-party legal data specialist to propose a framework for contracting industry data.

The aim was to develop a simple set of classifications to allow data providers and users to codify their access and supporting agreements and was intended to significantly speed up the process of agreeing the scope and terms of any data use licenses and to avoid where possible bespoke agreements between parties which are time-consuming and sometimes unnecessarily complex.

The recommendations of this commission fed directly into the design of the ‘licence-builder’ which forms part of the Rail Data Marketplace and allows the simple and intuitive creation of data sharing agreements.

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