Measuring Whole industry total factor productivity (TFP) of the railway in Great Britain

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is the independent safety and economic regulator of Britain's railways. This project falls within ORR's strategic objective of delivering value-for-money on the railways. In March 2025, we published a report on rail industry productivity, following a discussion paper in April 2024. Our latest report used measures such as train distance travelled, passenger journeys and Gross Value Added (GVA) as output measures to inform our productivity analysis. Other measures of output and productivity are possible which is what we seek to explore through this commission. Hence, we are seeking support in creating a productivity metric such as Total Factor Productivity (TFP) for the rail industry in Great Britain. We hope that this will help us better understand current productivity levels but also set the baseline for measuring any productivity changes as the industry moves towards (and ultimately beyond) rail reform.