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SUMMARY:Exploring rail futures using scenarios: experience and potential -
  Professor Stephen Potter
DTSTART:20061122T160000Z
DTEND:20061122T170000Z
UID:TALK5780@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julie Jupp
DESCRIPTION:In 1995 Robin Roy and I were invited by British Rail’s Direc
 tor of Technical Strategy to take part in a ‘futures’ exercise in the 
 run-up to British Rail’s privatisation. This involved preparing a briefi
 ng paper for the conference\, The Railways: Challenges to Science and Tech
 nology\, held at the Royal Society later that year. The briefing paper and
  conference contributions sought to identify priorities for rail science a
 nd technology developments under the new privatised regime. In the face of
  increasing uncertainty in markets\, technology and political/social trend
 s\, scenarios have come to be a used to explore how an organisation can pr
 epare for a range of possible futures. It is a much more robust approach t
 o developing design approaches than technology forecasting. Given the unce
 rtainties associated with rail privatisation\, a scenario approach was ado
 pted for the 1995 conference briefing paper. This provided four alternativ
 e scenarios for the future of UK rail transport up to 2010: cost-driven\, 
 quality-driven\, technology-driven and environmentally-driven. These marke
 t-based scenarios helped to specify areas of strategic design that were ne
 eded to improve rail’s competitiveness. It is now a decade since this pr
 e-privatisation scenario exercise took place. This presentation revisits t
 he 1995 scenarios and compares them to what actual market strategies emerg
 ed within the railway industry. It explores whether the four scenarios did
  succeed in capturing the range of market responses and consequential desi
 gn implications that emerged from rail privatisation and what lessons this
  contains for the use of scenarios in design research. With further transp
 ort policy situations emerging that are characterised by great uncertainty
  (e.g. road pricing futures)\, methods such as scenario planning rather th
 an forecasting may well become increasingly appropriate.
LOCATION:EDC Loft Conference Room
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