Rail Transformation Programme

The objective of this engagement was to complete a foundation block of work for the Great British Railways Transition Team at Department for Transport. The work involved creating an IT inventory, creating service personas/profiles, building an architectural landscape, and producing a findings/recommendations report. The focus of the engagement was on conducting a full architecture review of the current state of the systems and data used by the three DfTc Rail directorates, which were owned and managed by DfT. The review also included an assessment of the access to DfT products and services by non-DfT organisations. The UK Department for Transport (DfT) required assurance on the management and control over its rail assets across multiple SharePoint repositories. DfT also wanted validation of the information on which users used which systems, and their architectural model lacked meaningful rail data. The goal was to assist the DfT Digital Service in defining a desired state and change proposals, and to work with the Great Britain Rail Transformation Team (GBRTT), Network Rail, and the Rail Delivery Group to agree on necessary IT changes for the transition to the Great Britain Rail (GBR) system.

Goaco (previously known as Level 5) has compiled a central repository of rail applications and connected it to the Department for Transport’s (DfT) architectural software (Erwin). We also gathered detailed information about high-priority DfT rail applications from various suppliers and obtained service profile data, such as applications used and key data inputs and outputs, from over 150 senior rail stakeholders through interviews and questionnaires. Goaco had also sent out questionnaires to systems suppliers and the DfT to inquire about technical details and usage of IT systems. This resulted in a finished central repository of rail applications, an Erwin data model for each high-priority rail application and a set of rail service profiles for staff members who engaged with the project.