User engagement

We see the user engagement section as an ideal way to keep users of our statistics up to date, this can include:

• presenting our proposals about changes to statistics;
• publish changes in methodology prior to publication;
• publish papers of work we are working closely on; and 
• to keep users up-to-date with our consultation with the rail industry.

We actively seek feedback from users of the statistics, and this page offers a tool for this. We will highlight documents where we are looking for feedback from the users of the statistics.

• Statement on user engagement ( PDF 37 Kb)

Proposed changes

This section provides details on our proposed changes to our statistical publications. It outlines our proposals and asks for feedback from users of the statistics. The feedback received will inform our decisions about any potential changes and may influence our decisions.

There are currently no proposed changes.

Rail statistics management group

We currently chair two industry groups to ensure that our data meet stakeholder needs and are of good quality:

The Rail statistics management group (RSMG) meets quarterly and is made up of a number of member organisations. Current members are:

• Association of Train Operating Companies
• Department for Transport
• London Travelwatch
• Network Rail
• Office of Rail Regulation (ORR)
• Passenger Focus
• Rail Freight group
• Rail Safety and Standards Board
• Transport for London
• Transport Scotland
• The Welsh Assembly

The RSMG is made up of lead statisticians or data specialists that have responsibility for the production and use of rail data in their respective organisations and the group deals with the improvement of rail statistics.

National rail trends stakeholder group - We hold a quarterly forum, the NRT stakeholder group, with participants from a variety of industry stakeholders, representing passengers, train operators and government to discuss their requirements and also to ratify our proposals on data improvements.

This is also an ideal place for us to seek feedback from industry stakeholders on our statistics.

Minutes for previous RSMG meetings:

• 30 January 2013 ( PDF 144 Kb)
• 11 October 2012 ( PDF 158 Kb)

Research papers

• The impact of publishing more information on seat availability: South West Trains case study ( PDF 366 Kb) Published 26 Jul 2012
• Regional usage profiles - Origin Destination Matrix 2010/11 - Summary report ( PDF 498 Kb) Published 26 Apr 2012
• Regional usage profiles - Origin Destination Matrix 2009/10 - Summary report (  PDF 711 Kb) Published 13 Oct 2011
• Passenger journeys, passenger kilometres and complaints rate - Why are data provisional? ( PDF 29 Kb) Published 31 Oct 2011

Improving rail data

A number of reviews have been commissioned by us to ensure that its data are robust and align with stakeholder requirements. Links to the reports can be found below:

• NRT Data Portal user group meeting note - Tuesday 5 March 2013 ( PDF 88 Kb).
• ORR’s project on improving complaints data ( PDF 129 Kb).
• National rail trends portal survey, September 2011 ( PDF 109 Kb) - a summary of the results and key findings from the portal survey. It also includes how we are addressing the key findings from the survey.
• Office of Rail Regulation survey form for NRT data portal ( PDF 399 Kb) – a copy of the online survey from sent to registered users of the NRT data portal to assess the quality, timeliness and format of the portal.
• Putting rail information in the public domain ( PDF 1331 Kb) – a report from ORR and Passenger Focus on research carried out into what performance measures passengers wanted published, how it should be made publically available, how they would use it and what benefits they saw it would bring. We see this initiative as being fully consistent with the Government’s open data agenda.
• Review of National rail trends, 2006 ( PDF 543 Kb) – a review of the datasets within the NRT, with recommendations on how to improve quality. 
• Improving rail data, 2006 ( PDF 3 MB) – an overview of Network Rail's systems and sets out a process for assessing industry datasets against a Data Code.
• National rail trends stakeholder survey, 2007 ( PDF 47 Kb) – to determine who used NRT and what improvements / further data they would like to see.

Feedback

We welcome feedback. Please send an email to rstats@orr.gsi.gov.uk with any comments or suggestions and we will reply to you.

Last updated: April 2013.