Enabling innovation on the UK railway: a critical approach

Burrows, Alexander (2025). Enabling innovation on the UK railway: a critical approach. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The major impact of a range of factors, such as political uncertainties, economic difficulties, and the covid pandemic, have hit the UK railway hard, requiring the sector to address its costs and improve its performance. This has made innovation a necessity rather than choice for the sector. However, introducing innovation seems to be accompanied with greater complexity and complication in a complex system such as the railway.
This thesis seeks to analyse and explain the fundamental operation of innovation in the context of the UK railway sector, to identify and address the issues and barriers existing in the rail industry that challenge the introduction of innovations onto the railway, and to develop a conceptual framework to explain how innovation works and how more innovation can be enabled more successfully. The ambition for the framework is to act as a foundational piece that can go on to facilitate innovation in the global rail industry.
A systems approach has been adopted for the research methodology. The research reviews existing literature in the field of innovation generally and its application to the railway specifically. Mixed research methods are applied to collect, observe, and analyse the primary and secondary data to provide a broad evidence base to support the development of a model of the current UK railway innovation landscape, from which the conceptual framework is developed. Significant new quantitative and qualitative data contributes new knowledge in the field of rail innovation, as does the development of the model and the conceptual framework setting out railway innovation.
This research uses a critical approach to establish a conceptual framework that explains the process of rail innovation, and that significantly enhances the understanding of the key roles of actors and institutions that can accelerate and/or de-risk implementation processes for innovation on the railway. The framework is tested and validated to demonstrate its relevance to the proposed application of railway innovation.

Type of Work:	Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)
Award Type:	Doctorates > Ph.D.
Supervisor(s):	Supervisor(s) Email ORCID Hillmansen, Stuart UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Roberts, Clive UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Jack, Anson UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Ortega-Argiles, Raquel UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Licence:	All rights reserved
College/Faculty:	Colleges > College of Engineering & Physical Sciences
School or Department:	School of Engineering
Funders:	None/not applicable
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TF Railroad engineering and operation
URI:	http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/16366

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