The Rail Industry Monitor project has two primary objectives:

• to fill the gaps in research by maintaining a database on all relevant 'hard' data on subsidy, turnover, profits, investment, policy initiatives, patronage, competition and costs.
• to provide comprehensive and detailed reference material on a regularly updated basis on the issues of concern to managers, planners, decision makers and all those concerned with the future of the rail industry.

The project comprises a number of different workstreams, which enable individual reports and web pages to be updated progressively as more recent data becomes available.

The workstreams are:

1.  The Market for Rail Services

• Statistical information on patronage, revenue and fare trends on an industry-wide, sector and individual company basis
• Influences on demand for rail travel

2.  Industry Structure and Funding

• A portrait of the evolving structure of the industry and its regulators.
• Statistical analysis of the current pattern of industry ownership, including maps and market share calculations
• Tracking public expenditure on operating subsidy for the passenger railway

3.  Investment

• Tracking investment spending across the industry
• Checking plans and budgets against delivery
• Detailed section on passenger rolling stock, tracking planned investments and cascades
• New vehicle construction by type and manufacturer
• Projections on future orders and expected long-term buying patterns
• Detailed examination of infrastructure investment
• Analysis of previous and expected spending on renewals and enhancements
• Major project reviews including HS2 and future electrification.

4.  Rail Industry Performance

• The overall financial performance of the industry
• The results of individual operating companies
• Performance analysed by region, industry sector and ownership type
• KPIs of performance with national and regional league tables
• Movements in operating costs
• The structure of industry costs
• Key trends in labour costs and productivity.

5.  The Freight Railway

• Statistical information on traffic, revenue and fare trends on an industry-wide, sector and commodity basis
• Influences on demand for rail freight
• A portrait of the evolving structure of the rail freight industry
• Statistical analysis of the current pattern of industry ownership, including market share calculations
• The overall financial performance of the industry
• The results of individual operating companies

Company Reports

In addition to the analysis work, the project provides reports on individual operators, groups and holding companies, including

• company results
• investment decisions
• commentaries on the businesses with statistical analysis

Getting the Data

Rail Industry Monitor data can be obtained by taking out a subscription to our online Business Monitor service, which contains all the information we produce, plus individual company reports. It is regularly updated with new research and analysis.

We may in future publish reports based on the data, but no up to date editions are available at present. 

The Project

In the 22 years since the launch of the rail privatisation process, Britain’s rail industry has learned to live with change and reorganisation - and the process is continuing, with further change foreshadowed by the new coalition government. Everybody seems to have a view about it all, but what are the cold hard facts? New acronyms keep cropping up, like HLOS, SoFA, RPA and RUS. Then there’s PPM and NPS, and loads more. What do they mean and how are they going to affect rail services in future?

These are the questions that the TAS Rail Industry Monitor project was designed to answer, providing independent analysis of a full range of available data on the UK’s privatised rail industry. The project was launched during the privatisation process in 1993, and then rersults and data have been analysed for every year since the process was completed in 1996.

If your business earns its living from the UK rail industry, these are the questions you'll be asking yourself. And we can help you to answer them, with our acclaimed analysis of industry trends and performance.