Pre-Market Engagement: Network Rail Digital Footfall Solution

The rail network that is a complex system of interdependent links and nodes. Every passenger journey starts and ends at a station – yet track & train capacity and station capacity are not considered as one.

High frequency services, run as high capacity stock and operating with narrow headways deliver more people more frequently into our stations. Yet while we closely measure train punctuality performance, we have limited means of monitoring station performance.

Monitoring footfall within stations and on trains should be a vital component of any operational state and is truly cross-functional in its usage, users and benefits. The industry should regard the deployment and renewal of footfall monitoring technology as it does any other renewal: vital to the safety, efficiency and operation of the railway. If we can’t measure how are stations are performing, we cannot improve them. Without a continuous and objective basis from which we understand, plan and manage our network can we truly deliver a 21st Century level of operations – or can we rightly claim to be putting passengers first?