Railway Industry Association launches survey to gather views on the product acceptance process

 The Railway industry Association (RIA), the voice of the UK rail supply community, has launched a survey on behalf of Network Rail to gather how the industry views their product acceptance process. In recent years, Network Rail has made significant changes and focused efforts to improve and speed up the product acceptance process and they want to hear experiences of how the process is working and suggestions for further improvement.

David Clarke, Technical Director at the Railway Industry Association (RIA), said: “Having a smooth and effective product acceptance process is important in getting new products onto the rail network, with the plethora of benefits they bring. So we’re really keen to hear from rail suppliers as to how they are finding the process – and what can be done to improve it even further. I’d ask all to fill in this short survey and help support Network Rail’s R&D activity."

Rob Forde, R&D Programme Manager, Network Rail, said: “Our Product Acceptance process is all about ensuring we have safe, compatible, reliable, fit for purpose products on the rail system, and do not export unacceptable risks to our infrastructure. This is an opportunity for businesses from across the rail industry to feed in their thoughts and be part of improving how we work with suppliers.”

Network Rail will use the survey to develop the process further, and will update the industry on the process at the RIA Innovation Conference on 2 & 3 June 2020.

Notes to Editors

1. The survey can be found here
2. About RIA: The Railway Industry Association (RIA) is the voice of the UK rail supply community. We help to grow a sustainable, high-performing, railway supply industry, and to export UK rail expertise and products. We promote and represent our members’ interests to policy makers, clients and other stakeholders in the UK and overseas. RIA has 290+ companies in membership in a sector that contributes £36 billion in economic growth and £11 billion in tax revenue each year, as well as employing 600,000 people—more than the workforce of Birmingham. It is also a growing industry with the number of rail journeys expected to double over the next 25 years and freight set to grow significantly too. RIA’s membership is active across the whole of railway supply, covering a diverse range of products and services and including both multi-national companies and SMEs (60% by number). RIA works to promote the importance of the rail system to UK plc, to help export UK expertise around the globe and to share best practice and innovation across the industry.