Explore

This stage is all about helping promoters bring forward high quality ideas that deliver better value and could take roughly 3 months to complete. Be thorough in identifying the interdependencies and objectives, but sometimes less than 100% of the information is enough to take a decision, as long as you understand the potential risk and all relevant parties are involved in the decision. Make risk-based decisions relative to the stage.

“If you want more train services, the first thing you do is to see whether you can do it with the same number of staff and trains. You might then have to employ some more staff. You might have to buy some more trains. You might have to expand some of the stations. You might have to fix the signalling. Only at the end of it would you buy more track. Actually, in this country that is not the way we have thought about it for a long time…whether the transport and economic effects of that could be delivered in a more economical way by the existing system. If we get that right, the investment propositions that come forward will be those that deliver the most for the country and will be far easier for the Chancellor and the Treasury to accept.”

LORD HENDY OF RICHMOND HILL

Minister of State for Rail
(speaking at Transport Committee on 22nd January 2025)

The Exploration Toolkit contains:

Changing the railway means making a system change – there’s more to change than just the infrastructure – the trains, depots, timetables…. This toolkit will help you navigate that more easily. The degree of complexity and interfaces involved and who you need to talk to may not always be immediately obvious. These videos explain the areas you may need to consider.

Understanding what you will need to consider will help you develop your ideas at an early stage, even while there are still some uncertainties. There may be many ways to solve the problem, each with different costs, risks and benefits. It is useful to understand that there is a first principles sequence to making changes to the railway system and also that system changes in the early stages can be iterative in their nature.

The complexity of making a system change is a challenge for many projects at an early stage. Every project will have nuances and interdependences that require working in a level of detail that requires progression to the appropriate Network Rail PACE (Projects Accelerated in a Controlled Environment) or project lifecycle stage with appropriate design development. However, there are some subject areas that can be explored early on to give indications to help make risk-based judgements to inform decision making.

The Early Stage Specification Tool shows the sequence in which to consider system changes in order to maximise value by controlling costs:   

The Early Stage Specification Process is a hierarchy of options to consider before making changes to infrastructure.