Opportunities to improve testing and validation practices: COF-FTT

Introducing new technology to the mainline railway requires sufficient testing to ensure safe and reliable performance during operational use. Current testing practices for validation, verification, assurance, and approvals can be costly, time consuming, and challenging to undertake, partly due to the reliance on full-scale testing on the live railway. Improved testing practices that make better use of virtual and physical testing facilities could enable cheaper, faster, and more accurate testing of a wider range of operational use cases. This, in turn, is key to accelerate, derisk, and reduce the cost of introducing assets and new technologies on the railway.