Rail Delivery Group selects TCS to design UK Government’s Rail Data Marketplace

London, United Kingdom (Urban Transport News): Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been awarded a contract by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) to design, develop, implement, and operate the UK Government’s Rail Data Marketplace (RDM). The contract signed between TCS and RDG is for a term of six years including an extension term options.

The Rail Data Marketplace will bring together fragmented sources of rail data into one digital service, to accelerate innovation in the transport sector and enhance the passenger experience. It was first announced in 2021 by the UK Rail Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, as part of his plan to stimulate collaboration between the government and industry to accelerate innovation and deliver new products and services to enhance passenger experience and the effective movement of freight.

"We are delighted to lead on this strategic program with the Rail Delivery Group. Built on TCS Dexam, the Rail Data Marketplace can not only provide data relating to the rail industry but could also present adjacent data sources important to passengers and operators and help deliver an improved experience for users. In addition, the platform will have the ability to track environmental parameters, which will allow it to support the UK’s rail decarbonisation agenda," said Amit Kapur, Country Head, TCS UK and Ireland.

“In winning a challenging competitive tender TCS was able to demonstrate its capability to support the innovative launch of the Rail Data Marketplace. This brand-new service will build on the capability created in TCS's Dexam product supported by Google's integration tools. It will offer access to new data sources as well as present existing data in more accessible formats to help businesses use rail open data to speed change, reduce costs and create new value for customers,” commented Simon Moorhead, CIO & Member of the Board, Rail Delivery Group.

The RDM will offer tools and frameworks to improve the sharing of data and real-time information to passengers across the UK. This will simplify data sharing across operational bodies, including the UK’s rail and non-rail transportation and the mobility network. It will also increase access to data for public and private bodies, improving transparency and facilitating a UK wide railway innovation ecosystem.

In the development of the Rail Data Marketplace, TCS will leverage TCS Dexam a controlled data exchange environment for enterprises and their ecosystem partners. It enables democratisation, monetisation, and commercialisation of data, while preserving the security, privacy, and consent of data and its stakeholders. Additionally, TCS will use Google’s Apigee platform to develop and securely manage the APIs that partner applications will use to connect with the RDM.