"The Rail Data Marketplace will deliver a new way of sharing data between consumers – including app developers, tech firms, academia – and the rail industry. New data sharing opportunities will drive innovation, leading to the development of innovative passenger-facing applications, operational efficiencies and improved transparency." 

By adopting an ‘open by default’ approach, the Rail Data Marketplace will remove barriers and make it easeir for partners to work with the railway industry. Better access to quality rail data is seen as a key driver of better customer service and innovation across the industry, and forms one of the key commitments of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail.

With funding announced in June 2021, the programme of work has begun and is being delivered by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), and oversight by the Rail Data Council. Representatives from across the sector – including the Department for Transport, Rail Supply Group, RSSB, and Network Rail – have been working in partnership to kickstart the development of the service.

The long-term goal of the Rail Data Marketplace Programme is to develop a user-centred, business-to-business digital service that:

1. Provides access to data and real-time rail information, which stimulates innovation and enables the development of customer-focused products and services.
2. Improves data sharing across operational bodies, which leads to efficiency gains across the industry.
3. Improves access to high-quality rail data for public and private bodies which supports growth in rail and cross-modal public transport.
4. Provides a learning platform where users can access a rich source of data about the rail industry.

In realising these objectives, the Rail Data Marketplace will:

• Provide data that is transparent, and presents a ‘single source of truth’, meets a minimum standard of quality, and avoids a high barrier to entry for users.
• Establish community forums for users to raise issues, make suggestions for improvements (to the Rail Data Marketplace and to data itself), and request new datasets.
• Deliver enhancements, new features, services and datasets which responds to user needs.
• Make it easy to explore existing data sources.
• Help organisations to understand the contents of a data source, and provide technical documentation along with it.
• Show users how to connect to data and how to test that connection.
• Have clear terms of use for data sources and make signing up to them quick and easy.

One of the key objectives of the RDM is to bring data publishers and data consumers together on a single strategic platform which makes data searchable, easy to find and ‘friction-free’ to access. Through extensive user research off-the-shelf licenses were perceived as a high-value, key benefit. Feel free to have a look at the different contracts below.

pdf RDM Platform Agreement (Data Consumer) (264 KB)

pdf RDM Platform Agreement (Data Publisher) (275 KB)

pdf Data Sharing Agreement (167 KB)

Latest updates

The Rail Data Marketplace continues to move towards a public launch later in the year.  As we mentioned in the last newsletter, we are in a trial phase with a limited number of users. There are currently 19 organisations registered either as a Data Consumer or a Data Publisher. The feedback has been largely positive but with some great suggestions for improvement which we are incorporating into the next version.

The latest improvements to the service have been predominantly around accessibility, ensuring that the platform meets the nationally recognised standard (WCAG2.1 AA compliant). It has also involved ensuring that the non-technical areas of the platform can be accessed via mobile and tablet. Having completed the work, we are currently in the middle of an independent audit.

Our next big milestone, and a requirement before we can make the service publicly available, is to pass Government Digital Service Beta assessment. This is to ensure that the service has been designed and built with the user in mind and meets government standards. Our assessment is in late March; wish us luck!