As a passenger, you will no longer navigate multiple companies for different parts of your journey …
You’ ll now deal with one railway. One brand. One organisation in charge. With your entire experience starting and ending with 3 letters: GBR.”
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A NATIONAL FRAMEWORK WITH LOCAL DELIVERY
The Secretary of State for Transport has been clear in her intention to make GBR a single, unified network. Delivering the George Bradshaw Address in February 2026, she stated:
Achieving the economies of scale which have been stated as an ambition of track-train integration will require consistency across GBR, and this consistency is also important for operators crossing multiple route boundaries.
Crucially, GBR’ s customers must still see it as a single organisation, in line with the Secretary of State’ s ambitions, rather than as a fragmented railway.
As a passenger, you will no longer navigate multiple companies for different parts of your journey …
You’ ll now deal with one railway. One brand. One organisation in charge. With your entire experience starting and ending with 3 letters: GBR.”
The decision to position Integrated Railways at the top of the hierarchy must not risk diluting the integrity of GBR. Any single route or business unit should be seen within the context of GBR as a whole.
This challenge will be especially apparent on multi-operator routes, with a variety of customers, ensuring each can identify with their own needs within the context of the GBR brand as a whole.
With an estimated 40 % of passenger journeys set to be on non-GBR operations, GBR will need to clearly define how it will interact with other operators, such as devolved authority routes and open access. Likewise, freight customers will need clear expectations about how GBR will run the network and how they will interact with it.
Critical to this will be managing boundaries between Integrated Railway areas, to provide clarity for operators whose services cross these boundaries.
For customers, the challenge of creating a unified network goes beyond the main line railway. If customers’ end-to-end journeys are to be made simpler, GBR will need to work very closely with other transport modes.
Better Connected: A Strategy for Integrated
Transport, published by the Government in April 2026, sets out ambitions to create seamless journeys across transport modes. The announcement of funding for the“ Mini Switzerland” scheme in the Hope Valley, which will act as a trial for how rural buses and trains can work better together through reliable connections, simple ticketing and clearer information, is a positive example of this.
10 CIRO’ s Operational Agenda for Great British Railways