Regulator sets action plan for safe adoption of AI in rail and road

Regulator sets action plan for safe adoption of AI in rail and road Fri, 29/05/2026 - 08:02 29 May 2026 The Office of Rail and Road’s Safe AI Innovation Action Plan, published today, sets out how ORR will enable the safe adoption of AI within UK rail and England’s strategic road network. Cover Image Image Body Components One of ORR’s first actions will be to clarify safety risks and regulatory expectations for AI use. This will be published by the end of September via the Digital Safety Strategy and Strategic Risk Chapter on health and safety risks arising from the use of digital systems. ORR’s use of AI is already embedded into some internal processes. This year, the regulator will explore how innovations can be built into the process of checking that trains and infrastructure can safely work together across the rail network (interoperability authorisations). ORR will also build AI into its analysis of consumer datasets to aid early detection and intervention of issues to better protect consumers. Data has an important role in decision-making and ORR is committed to building on its transparent and open data approach. This would mean that even more data can be used to inform regula