Powering Efficiency and Savings Across the Railway Network

To maintain the nation’s rail infrastructure, projects at Network Rail frequently work on and around the tracks — often needing to gain access via neighbouring properties, change heritage buildings or operate within an urban environment. There are hundreds of infrastructure projects throughout each year, but there wasn’t a central source for project managers to seek advice from relevant areas of expertise, nor to validate if access had previously been sought or granted. Such advice is critical to ensure that each project develops an effective property strategy.

­­The current ways of working relied on spreadsheets and correspondence by email and telephone. There was no central place to record this information, so consistency and audit trails were very limited. A project might require access to the track via another property, but this did not become evident until arriving on site. Time could be wasted and the works delayed until all the necessary permissions, easements (pre-negotiated fees to the land-owner to use a section of land) and possessions (enabling Network Rail to close a section of the track while works are carried out) were all correctly put in place.

The Land & Consent Team saw the opportunity to improve efficiency by building a new, bespoke system to direct project managers through a more detailed and systematic proforma. This would guide them through the steps required to develop their property strategy — and provide an easy way to request information from, or ask questions of, areas of expertise such as the Town Planning and Property Services Teams.