Article

Steer Davies Gleave hosts its first Movement Matters event in the UK focused on the future of Britain’s railways

An excellent turnout of attendees joined a high-profile panel of experts at County Hall in central London.

By Steer

An excellent turnout of attendees joined a high-profile panel of experts at County Hall in central London, sharing an insightful discussion regarding the future of railway organisation.

Mike Goggin, Director at Steer Davies Gleave, chaired the panel and was joined by Stephen Gardner, Amtrak’s Executive VP for Planning, Technology and Public Affairs; Andrew Haines, Civil Aviation Authority’s Chief Executive; and Howard Smith, Crossrail’s Operations Director. These three eminent speakers provided stimulating and varying perspectives on the future of Britain’s railways.

The Future Railway Organisation

The Future Railway Organisation

The Future Railway Organisation

Event summary

The session began with Stephen Gardner, Executive Vice President for Planning, Technology and Public Affairs for Amtrak, offering his perspective from his experience in  America.

Andrew Haines, Chief Executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) presented next. He joined the CAA after a wide-ranging career in the rail industry and used experience in both rail and air sectors to draw comparisons.

Howard Smith, Crossrail’s Operations Director and Chief Operating Officer for Rail at Transport for London explored lessons learned from his experience of London’s railways and contrasted the benefits of privatisation and competition with also the contribution of a stable and empower public sector.

Discussion on the presentations focused on the lessons to be learned from each other, the benefits of collaboration, of deregulation, and the difficulty stemming from fragmentation. Howard emphasised that  it becomes easier to incentivise the industry towards the benefit of customers through a more collaborative railway.

Key themes

Four common themes emerged from the presentations and the Q&A discussion:

  1. The challenge of capacity cannot be ignored, and needs collective understanding and action to resolve constraints.
  2. Creating delivery approaches which further fragment, complicate or harden rights and obligations, without ability to be flexed, would make the challenge of responding to the market and to stakeholders more difficult and more expensive.
  3. There is a need to empower management to act by removing unnecessary ‘noise’ of intra-modal conflicts.
  4. Freeing the industry from political interference and detailed and over-burdensome regulation could help to stimulate new approaches to delivering the outcomes Government wanted.

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

Further images of the event can be viewed online at Flickr.

Off

Subscribe to our newsletter, The Edit

We are Steer

Yes, you are in the right place. After 40 years, we have changed our name from Steer Davies Gleave to mark our growing international footprint and our expanding portfolio into sectors beyond transport.

Explore our new website to learn more about Steer: who we are, how we work and what our future holds.

Related insights

  • 18 Jul 2024
    Article

    The King’s Speech: Our key takeaways on planning, transport and the energy transition

    By Steer

    King Charles sets out the new Labour Government’s legislative agenda which intends to ‘take the brakes off Britain’.

    Read more

  • 31 May 2022
    Article

    Crossrail – it wasn’t quick or easy, but it is wonderful

    Adrian Cole
    Consulting Director
    Victoria Rees
    Associate Director

    As Crossrail completes its first week of passenger service, it's a good opportunity to reflect on the work that led to this milestone.

    Read more

  • 21 May 2021
    Article

    Rail in a post-COVID-19 world – is the White Paper vision fit for purpose?

    Simon Ellis
    Consulting Associate Director

    When the Government launched the Williams Rail Review in September 2018, Keith Williams already faced a daunting task.

    Read more

  • 13 May 2020
    Article

    Reinstating rail services

    By Steer

    Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has not been possible to introduce significant service changes.

    Read more

  • 10 Feb 2020
    Article

    The benefits of a digital parking offer to airports

    Stephen D. Van Beek
    Director

    Building, operating and maintaining infrastructure are imperative for airport owners and operators.

    Read more

  • 15 Jun 2019
    Article

    The impact of demographic, social & technological trends on travel behaviour

    By Steer

    Steer initiated an R&I project to improve our understanding of trends likely to impact on future travel behaviour.

    Read more

  • 06 May 2019
    Article

    The role of air freight logistics

    Peter Wiener
    Associate

    The air freight industry plays an important role within the UK, particularly for regional economies.

    Read more

  • 24 Apr 2019
    Article

    Considerations for solving hospital parking problems

    By Steer

    We look at five potential approaches to reducing parking demand at hospitals.

    Read more

  • 16 Apr 2019
    Article

    Electric buses: impetus for electric mobility in Indian cities?

    Prashanth Udayakumar
    Principal Consultant

    India has been considering electric mobility and alternative fuels as potential solutions to the crisis of air pollution.

    Read more

  • 02 Apr 2019
    Article

    Better boarding on Britain's trains?

    By Steer

    On increasingly busy railways, reliable operation means making every second count.

    Read more

  • 15 Feb 2019
    Article

    Understanding the potential for shared ebikes in New York City

    By Steer

    On behalf of Uber, Steer conducted a study to evaluate the potential for shared ebikes to revolutionize travel in New York and London.

    Read more

  • 05 Feb 2019
    Article

    The impacts of AVs on intercity travel

    By Steer

    Steer co-presented with WSP a paper on the potential impacts of autonomous vehicles on intercity rail travel.

    Read more