Rail and Road Pod Office of Rail and Road

Highways UK brings together the people responsible for managing, maintaining, and future-proofing the nation's road networks. 

Over the course of the two-day event our roads team discussed areas including our Annual Assessment of National Highways and the next Road Investment Strategy, RIS3. 
In this podcast we catch up with:
Feras Alshaker, ORR director of planning and performanceNick Harris, chief executive officer of National Highways, who manage England's motorways and A-roads   Anthony Smith, chief executive of Transport Focus, the independent watchdog for transport usersSneha Patel, ORR deputy director for roads  

In this episode, we take a look at the journey taken by a trainee inspector of railways at the Office of Rail and Road.

We speak to two current trainee inspectors, an ORR inspector who explains what is needed to make the grade and Ian Prosser, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Railways, gives his advice to those taking their first steps.

Find out more about our safety work.

Contact us on podcast@orr.gov.uk.

In this episode, we take a look at the safety work we do in the heritage sector.
Simon Barber, our principal inspector of heritage, and Richard Hines, our deputy chief inspector of non-mainline, discuss the frequent occurrences of working-at-height accidents, how the sector can benefit from the Risk Management Maturity Model, co-operation with the Heritage Railway Association and what steps the sector needs to take in order to improve safety.
 
 Find out more about the ORR's heritage railways work.
Contact us on podcast@orr.gov.uk.

In this episode, Chief Executive, John Larkinson discusses ORR's role in rail reform.

Recorded at the Accelerate Rail event in London on 21 March, John explains how rail reform and the implementation of Great British Railways will lead to significant change at ORR.  He goes on to describe how things will need to be done differently because of a much bigger role for the organisation. 

In this episode we discuss the Railway Work, Life & Death project, which takes a look back at railway worker accidents in Britain and Ireland from the late 1880s to 1939.  We're joined by Dr Mike Esbester, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Portsmouth.  

The Office of Rail and Road has been pleased to be able to help the project, which is a joint initiative between the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick. 

Paul Wilkinson, knowledge project lead in ORR's Railway Safety Directorate also joins the discussion. We explore some historic incidents, how safety has developed as a result, and how our archives continue to provide valuable insights to our colleagues in His Majesty's Railway Inspectorate. 

In this episode we're out and about at the Highways UK event which took place at the NEC in Birmingham. We hear from John Larkinson, Chief Executive of ORR, Anthony Smith, Chief Executive, Transport Focus, and Nick Harris, Chief Executive, National Highways. They discussed smart motorways as part of a panel discussion during the event. 

Also from ORR, you'll hear from Sneha Patel, Deputy Director of the Highways Team and Harry Garnham, Head of Roads Performance who share their thoughts on the event and some of our areas of focus at the moment. 

Find out more about our work holding National Highways to account at: https://www.orr.gov.uk/monitoring-and-regulation/roads-monitoring/holding-national-highways-to-account