Historically, the rail industry’s approach to service recovery following disruption was disjointed. With no common National Standards, companies were experiencing increased delays, financial penalties, and customer dissatisfaction. Following a comprehensive RSSB research project in 2019, JFRail led the Integrated Train Service Recovery (ITSR) programme to mitigate these challenges.
The first of its kind, the programme involved a national roll-out of aligned processes and plans to support service recovery, directly targeting people and processes in all UK Control Centres (12 Network Rail (NR), 18 from train operators, and 7 from freight operators) to deliver a step change across the industry. Since completion in March 2024, we have delivered two further optimised deployments for the Bedford to London route and across Wales for Transport for Wales. ITSR offers consistency and standardisation whilst remaining adaptable to meet the unique requirements of each local Control Centre. We delivered a comprehensive training and change programme, comprising e-learning and table-top exercises, to ensure a seamless transition to new ITSR processes across three areas: disruption management, resource management, and competency management.
Over 80% of the project’s feedback has been positive, with the majority coming from Controllers and Duty Managers who remain at the centre of service recovery activities. The programme has removed barriers between passenger operators, freight operators, and NR, facilitating coordinated collaboration to benefit both passengers and the wider industry. Initial calculations in Sussex show an increase in performance minute savings from 4.77% pre ITSR to 6.99% after ITSR implementation. There has also been a 17% reduction in total delay minutes Year on Year, a 9% reduction in delay minutes per incident, and a 5% reduction in reactionary delay minutes.
Following the primary ITSR deployment, we have conducted several deep dive projects to further enhance and embed the new processes and deliver even further performance improvements across the country. ITSR was shortlisted at both the Golden Whistle Awards and the National Rail Awards, a testament to its success and national profile.
It has been a been a good journey and we have felt supported by the project team throughout. ITSR is also being used by us locally to support a gap identified in our recruitment process which will benefit new starters and drive more efficiencies in this area. It’s not been too big a challenge as the processes were easy to follow.
