The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) Safe AI Innovation Action Plan, published today (29 May), sets out how ORR will enable the safe adoption of AI within UK rail and England’s strategic road network.
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 regulation without relying on sensitive or identifiable data.
Stephanie Tobyn, director of strategy, policy, and regulation at ORR said: “ORR’s action plan illustrates how we’re playing our part in enabling responsible adoption of AI with users at the heart of innovation.
“We’re providing regulatory stability for industry in what we expect from them and in doing so also providing reassurance to users that within the industries we regulate AI can be utilised responsibly, transparently and safely.”
Full details of the Safe AI Innovation Plan can be found here.
Image credit: ORR
