#126: Rob Morris, Co-CEO at Siemens Mobility (UK & Ireland): “UK Railway is the safest in the world.”

0:00How do we make AI in the virtual world help us in the real world? And that's essentially what we will be doing.

0:16So today's guest is Mr. Rob Morris, co-CEO for the UK and Ireland at Siemens Mobility. Rob is vastly experienced. as he spent over two decades delivering and leading major UK infrastructure programs, moving from operational roles into senior leadership roles. We talk about what good leadership looks like in a safety-critical environment like this. And we also discuss how the co-CEO model works. You don't see that very often. How does that work in practice within a global organization like this, which was very insightful. We also turn to the digitalization of the UK rail network. Rob explains the shift from traditional signaling, for instance, to digital systems, and also the growing sophistication of train driving technology and how close the industry really is to fully autonomous operation, which isn't really the case at the moment.

1:08Most of them are manned, although the software does a lot, but that may not be the case for too much longer. He also shares why the UK continues to be regarded as a global leader in rail safety as these systems and this technology evolves. We also explore how asset management is changing as rail becomes more increasingly software-driven, with digital systems and data now as critical as the physical railway itself, and why this demands a stronger focus on visibility, control, and governance. fascinating conversation really insightful such an interesting organization i didn't realize they covered as much as they did uh it's a fab conversation rob's a great storyteller it's rob morris rob thank you so much for agreeing to do this i've been really excited by the prospect of talking to you we've had this lined up for quite a while the more research i've done on siemens and yourself, the more sort of excited I've been about chatting to you.

2:10There's loads to unpack today. So first of all, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on. Well, thank you, Gareth. I'm really keen to see what the rest of the interview will sort of unravel between us. So let's crack on, shall we? We always start off with this big question, Rob. You know, obviously, we're a technology and leadership podcast. So what does good leadership mean to you? That's a cracking question. And I guess, well, the first thing is, I'm absolutely ancient. I've been working now for nearly 50 years. So I guess during my time, I've had lots of opportunity to look at what good leadership looks like.

2:48And for me, I guess when I first started when I was young, I thought it was about knowing all the answers and being able to give all those answers. And actually, how wrong was I? It's about really understanding what the right questions are to ask of those people around you and listening deeply to what they've got to say and empowering them to find the solutions. and I think that is a good sign of good leadership and you know at the end of the day we're all here to enjoy ourselves and it's how do we make sure that we do just that and whatever we do. Absolutely that's a great answer look I think a lot of what you're talking about there is about being a good listener Rob isn't it being a good listener listening to people's point of views and empathizing with their situation so that you can basically get to the fundamental you know the fundamentals of what they're talking about so that you can provide support for them to achieve their goals.

3:51Because if your team are achieving their goals, then you are achieving yours, aren't you? Absolutely. So yeah, empathy is at the heart of that. And that's a really good answer, Rob. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. So for the listeners who are not very familiar with yourself and also with Siemens Mobility, could you give us a little bit of an introduction, an overview of your career and what your role, what you're doing right now? Yeah, sure. So I'm a joint CEO of Siemens Mobility. We manufacture trains and rail infrastructure, rail systems solutions. So the whole system around mobility by train and everything that goes with it, all the techie stuff, if you like.

4:33As I just mentioned, I've been working for something like 50 years now, very close to that. And I've had the good fortune as starting off as an apprentice, then graduating. I've worked in the mining industry, mining research and development, and then building stuff. and then in the building power stations around the world in the Middle East, in the UK, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, then coming back to the UK and getting involved with general construction. So what does that mean? So that's nuclear decommissioning, some pretty heavy stuff in that. The 2012 Olympics, I was involved with that. Heathrow Terminal 2, airside building.

5:17that facility that came underneath me and running a power and energy business as well before joining Siemens some 11 years ago. And I have to say, I've enjoyed every single working day of my career, although some days more than others. Well, look, the lessons are in the difficult days, aren't they? You know what I mean? It's never played sailing. So yeah. Can I just take you back to the beginning, the very beginning, but you know, the early part of your career journey. How did you pursue this direction? What got you into engineering procurement type work? I didn't set out to be in technology. What did you want to be when you grew up then, Rob?

6:04I wanted to be an architect. I'm a son of a plasterer. My grandfather was a plasterer, you know, very working class, but... Bloody hard work trying to find a good plaster, I tell you that now. You went and had a good career doing that. Yeah, well, don't come to me. I'm rubbish at it. So, they have their own businesses. Because I was into maths, but I was also into art. And I wanted to go into architecture. So, that's where I started the college building, actually. But it was during that time I realized that I was more inquisitive from an engineering perspective. And that took me into engineering.

6:51So within the first year or so, I shifted into an engineering-based career. And it was from that that I took on an apprenticeship in engineering. I joined the mining industry at a mining research and development establishment at that time. And what was really fabulous about that was I graduated during that time where I got involved with ultrasonic technology, microwave technology, nucleonics, fiber optics, all in a mining environment. and how can you use this technology to really improve productivity, safety, and everything that goes with that. And that really started me off on engineering and technology.

7:38And the two have sort of gone hand in hand all the way through my career. Yeah. You spent quite a long time of your early career, a large part of your earlier career, kind of in operations, technical delivery type work, by the sounds of it. And then you took a foray into leadership, shall we say. I know you were a battle for BT. You became a managing director, a senior director, I mean, operations director initially, and then a managing director. Can you talk us through that transition? Why did you move into those senior roles? Why did you go in that direction? And what did you initially think about it in terms of that change and working in senior leadership roles?

8:18Did you take to it like a duck to water, or was it something you had to adapt to for quite a while? So I think, well, first of all, I'm still adapting now. You know, the world is changing, so I have to adapt. Now, every day is a changing day. Every day I have to adapt. I don't think it's something that you do once, twice, or three times. It's continuous. Going back to Balfour Beatty, which I have to say was a decade of, I loved it in Balfour Beatty. Balfour Beatty, a marvelous company. We're all at Siemens in a totally different way. And I was actually in Poland at the time. I was building a power station in Poland, Zielon Agora, which was generating electricity for the national grid in Poland, but also providing heat for a city of 100 ,000.

9:08and right at that time there was a unit within alpha bt where we freshly set up to deal with multi-disciplined type projects not just civil engineering based and so i was approached head-hunted if you like whilst was in poland to see if i will be interested in a role here given that you know an electrical electromechanical engineer yeah but with a broad epc engineering construction commissioning background turnkey and heavily technology-based how would i would i be interested in in going yeah into that and because it's difficult to pull yourself away from the detail and the daily grind of the hands-on work isn't it I would find that difficult, I'm sure.

9:59It felt natural to me, I think, because I'd had quite a few, if you like, points of adversity in my career, you know, one or two notable ones, where leadership was actually really, there's no other way through. I was on my own and somehow I had to deal with it. And so it feels natural to go from an operational perspective to a leader of people and organizations. And you do that in a project environment anyway. But general management, I guess, means to a large degree is, I think, letting go of a lot of things. you know really putting trust in others and giving them that trust and essentially empowering them to to do it and just offering your guidance asking those questions that i talked about earlier and empowering them to come up with the solutions so i you know i i got involved with some marvelous things in whilst was it with val for beating i can imagine and and the the really good thing there was really around efficiency and cost control because civil engineering businesses, large construction contractors, they work on very, very tiny margins, big programs and with big risks.

11:27And so to be able to manage people, manage programs, manage costs and risks, it's about getting the best out of people, but where you can use technology to do that too. Yeah, absolutely. So obviously a very successful spell at Balfour BT, one of the UK's top construction companies. But then you obviously had this opportunity to come up with Siemens Rail. Had you done much in Rail before joining Siemens in 2015? Or was that new territory for you? So I think it's fair to say I'd flirted with rail during my career a few times. And mining, you know, to move coal around the country involved trains and roads.

12:14And so when I was in my early 20s, I was actively involved in some called automatic vehicle identification. So that's monitoring trains around the country using technology and the weight of coal on that trains. So there was a bit of a flirt there with it and building infrastructure for rapid rail outloading of coal. So we got involved with that as well. Early on with Balfour Beatty, I was involved with one of the projects I was overseeing was the overhead line electrification of the West Coast mainline. But with Siemens, I think what really got me excited was the role I've got is around overseeing research and development, which my past is anchored in that.

13:05It's around product design, manufacturing. I've overseen being responsible for five or six factories before in past lives. So again, that came together. All systems architecture around rail systems and all of that, getting involved with that. We're also putting things into play on the infrastructure. in terms of civils, the mechanical installation, electrical works, and all the automation and commissioning that's required to put systems into place, and the interplay with trains, and large programs, which are basically funded by the government and the taxpayer, and have a political element to them.

13:55So all of those component parts were key to the final seduction into the rail industry with Siemens from that initial flirting in the early days. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's such language. Yeah, and you haven't looked back since, I don't suppose. Oh, absolutely. Love it. So can I ask you about your most recent role then? So what stood out for me is you don't see too many co-CEOs. around and your job title implies that you've obviously got more than one remit shall we say look after a different unit of Siemens as well talk us through what is the purpose of your role Rob what what what is your or your roles what what is the main the reason the raison d 'etre of your position at Siemens?

14:39So I'm as you quite rightly say a co-CEO so Siemens Mobility here in the UK and Ireland we're a large company and we've got four business units and so we've got rail infrastructure which includes train command and controls so signaling traffic management systems conflict resolution systems or and we'll go into that if you like a bit later all the software that's required to improve the flow of railway and traffic movement passenger movement and all of that. So that's two business units, which I'm responsible for. I've got a colleague, co-CEO, Gleish Schneider, recently joined in that role. And she's responsible for rolling stock and rolling stock maintenance.

15:30So probably about around a quarter of the rolling stock or trains either in the UK are actually Siemens technology. And we've maintained that. So we make sure that They operate regularly and reliably on the network. And so each night and weekends, they're for maintenance. And so Aglaia looks after those two businesses, Rolling Stock and School Customer Services. But together, we're jointly and severally responsible for seamless mobility here in the UK and our manufacturing trains and control systems and rail systems here in the UK for the UK. using our 5 ,000 or so people and the ingenuity they bring to engineer and put all these into being.

16:24We operate out of some 30 locations around the country, both in terms of manufacturing, depots and offices from Southampton on the south coast to Glasgow in Scotland and across the breadth of the country as well. And we use something like 2 ,100 plus suppliers here in the UK, predominantly here in the UK, to help us do that. And my responsibility, and I glanced too for Earthstreams, is to make sure that we are a viable, sustainable company that we do the right thing by the traveling public and our clients and freight users as well by providing top class technology and systems that you know improve the now and ultimately improve the future and we're investing heavily in doing that so we've just spent 200 million or so up in school for a new rail manufacturing facility and we're currently building Piccadilly Line trains out of there.

17:35We're also building about 40 million bogey service centre out there so that we can maintain the bogey sets on those trains and around the country appropriately. Also another 100 million in a brand new R &D facility, a manufacturing facility in Chippenham. So collectively that's 340 million, And so we're very much invested in the future. And my job is to make sure that we do our very best as essentially a caretaker for the business, for the sector. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Siemens seems to be at the center of the sort of digitalization of the UK rail network. And one thing that stood out for me on that, and I'm sure a lot of people will sort of empathize with this, We've all been in a train station, enduring some long delay because of signaling issues.

18:31I know you guys are helping move from traditional signaling to sort of digital train controls of sorts. So in simple terms, why is the shift from trackside signals to sort of in-cabbing digital systems such a sort of big deal in the rail sector right now? And what are you guys doing to help that shift accelerate? That shift to digital signaling is a must, really. And first of all, trackside signals, lights on sticks, if you like, actually limit the capacity on the existing railway. We're also not a very sustainable way of controlling the railway. There's a lot of intervention on the infrastructure that's required.

19:17And that access is both costly and not very productive, because everything has to be done quite rightly in a safe manner during times of when the railway is not operating. And that's quite narrow windows to do that. What digital signaling does, and it's called European Train Control System technology, is it actually brings those signals into the cab. So it's digital, essentially on the screen. And that information is instantaneous. it allows trains to operate a lot closer together because the brains know the acceleration and the braking times for these trains it gives instant information to the driver so he can drive at maximum performance and that could be speed more ideally from a sustainable perspective so the most economical way of doing that and also how to control speed to meet the requirements of the timetable and that's something else that we do you know we do our interlockings our interlockings are what protect trains from stopping going into an area where there's already a train we've got a control system which allows that to happen smoothly but inevitably there's delays from time to time you touched on on those delays and what we now provide is something called digital conflict resolutions new system and what it does is it looks at the performance of the railway compared to the timetables and looks and provides options to the signaler say well how can you reduce that delay by changing the way in which things happen on the railway and these things ordinarily wouldn't be visible because the railway is so complex it is amazingly complex absolutely yeah and now it takes time for these things to roll out and of course at the end of the day it's around balancing funding against ambition and of course economical constraints of which the the government, for example, has got quite a lot of them.

21:44Yeah, no, absolutely. Just out of curiosity, how does the UK compare in terms of rail infrastructure on the global stage, Rob? I know you've worked all over the world, and I've been on trains. I was in Italy a couple of years ago, and I was very impressed. The high-speed trains going from Venice to Bologna were fantastic, and I know they've got other good services there. And the UK is improving, for sure. But how does the UK stack up compared to the leaders in rail infrastructure like Japan, Germany, Italy, potentially, and others? Well, the first thing is the railway needs to be safe. And the UK railway is the safest in the world.

22:24Really? Okay. It is, yeah. So that's a good thing. So let's take that box when comparing across the rest of the world. The second thing is, you know, it's a largely Victorian railway. We've been the first at so many things, and that because of the Industrial Revolution. The two being one of them, of course. That's right. And so by being the first players and building on that, we've got a fabulous, highly dense railway. But with that, it's a railway that demands a lot of renewal, just as it is, to stop it from falling over. So that's highly costly. And then to get enhancements on top of that, that is perhaps where some of our challenges are as a country, because we're having to maintain and build on something that's really very old.

23:22Now, if we were comparing around the world to say, well, you know, which part of the UK infrastructure is a real high performer, truly world class, then the Elizabeth line has to stand out there. you know it surpassed all expectations yeah bearing in mind this is something that was based on you know it's specified the best part of two decades ago now you know we really have got something there that as a nation we can we can shout about you know and the good thing from our perspective is you know in the central sections of of Elizabeth line we provided the communication based train control systems there so the trains are managed by our systems our customer information systems are there so the platform screen doors all the wayfinding all of that is provided by Siemens technology all the movement of escalators the environment that people feel people see sense, touch to move around efficiently, that's all driven by Siemens technology.

24:39So, you know, from my perspective, and from a business perspective, we are very proud to be part of, you know, the highest performing railway in the UK, and one that stands really high and proud globally. I mean, it's an incredible achievement, isn't it? I mean, I was watching a documentary about it not long after it opened about the sort of engineering challenge of getting it to not ruin a show when you're sitting in the Barbican with a train going past so they had to put it on like a suspension with shock absorbers to absorb the noise so when it goes under the Barbican theater it goes on like a different suspension track if you like so it absorbs all the noise it keeps quiet when it's going under I thought it was incredible but there was those little like bits like that you know sort of troubleshooting these engineering challenges as you go along type thing it was an amazing and the technology on it is fab as well i did have a question for you about that but what is your proudest achievement in terms of the technical integration of that cross rail project rob and how does it sort of shape how you approach major uk rail programs going forward what did you learn from that that piece of work with adversity comes opportunity with grit and determination, you'll hit success.

25:58There was lots of problems with the Elizabeth line during its build and around budget and all those sorts of things. COVID came along, which further exacerbated the problem. But at the end of the day, we've created something through grit and determination and very clear thinking in the end by us all leaning in together, multiple companies leaning in together to really operate to the best of our technology, the best of our people or whatever, to come up with something that's absolutely fabulous. The same will happen with iSpeed 2, but it doesn't feel that way at the moment. Eventually, yeah, maybe.

26:41Yeah, that's been dragging over a while, hasn't it? But was there a specific technology you invented for that project or you had to customize or something? Was there any products that came out of it for you guys? So, you know, there's lots of things we did. I think the most impressive thing that we did there was because of the signalling system across the south and through London, we've got multiple systems provided by multiple suppliers. yeah we've got something called tpws which is a old type of train protection system and that was predominantly on the east and on the west a similar system we're moving into european train control system and likewise to ethereo and we got a metro system in the middle bit which was communication based train control system sorry with all the different technologies but for us to integrate all those systems together so that we got seamless operation between what's essentially network rails mainline systems on the east and the west and through the core our systems the metro systems to get that free-flowing movement really open up London both to the rest of the country but also attract housing and all of those it told me really taught me how technology the employment of technology the great integration of that by novel means can really have social and economic benefits.

28:29It's really improved the productivity of London as a consequence. Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell me a little bit about the East Coast Digital Programme and your involvement in that? As I understand, quite a lot came out of that which potentially could tell us how the future that all the next 10 years look in terms of the rail sector in the UK. Can you tell us a little bit about that whole programme? Yeah, so, well, first of all, the East Coast mainline is really important to the UK economy. So, 30 % of the nation is within 20 minutes of the East Coast mainline, if I recall that correctly. and so it really is a rich vein for opening up productivity along the east coast and you know a few years ago now we were you know we had a great opportunity we won the framework to essentially renew the signaling of the of the east coast we've we've opened up northern city line now that's operating on etcs so the trains and the infrastructure are talking to each other and we are gradually moving up the east coast to improve that technology and to you know make rail journeys much more reliable improve capacity and keep both passenger and a driver more informed and ultimately that will create much more sustainable railway because we are operating in a much more efficient way.

30:05But just on that, it's not just about signaling. It's probably move away from East Coast, if I could use that as a segue. You know, the future for me is around the whole system. And as a manufacturer of trains and the infrastructure, and with rail reform as it's going with the soon-to-form Great British Railways, we can look at the whole system, how we use digitalization and electrification in the right way. So moving totally away from diesel, carbon fuels, we can have battery by mode technology. So that's trains that will operate either under electrified lines or on their own without electrified lines through battery power.

30:53But also we've got something called a rapid or a rail charger converter that can charge trains dynamically so it'll pass them. And what this does is it gives us an opportunity in the future to have trains that are net zero, that actually save something like 12, we've modeled seven routes, can save something like 12 million tons of carbon through the life of those trains. And at the same time, it's considerably cheaper. Something like$3.5 billion is what we've modeled. So for me, digitalization, new technology, looking at things in a whole system perspective, really opens up for a cleaner, more less, if you like, a cheaper way of traveling in the future.

31:51It has to be the right thing for the passenger. and the freight users, and of course, the taxpayer. Absolutely. I suppose the digitalization, we were talking about asset management earlier on because it's such a critical part of running a rail organization or network is obviously tracking and managing your physical assets. With digitalization, you're seeing an increase, like maybe a reduction in the physical asset inventory moving over to a digital asset inventory, which then potentially will create more efficiencies. Is that the journey you're sort of on with increasing digitalization? Absolutely, yes.

32:28We've got, for example, our Desiro trains, which operate actually on the East Coast as well and in London. They carry something like 9 million data points on the health of the train. They also can look at the infrastructure and the health of the track and vibrations on that. But as an example of what you just said, those 9 million data points contribute to it scheduling its own preventative maintenance. So 30 % of its preventative maintenance is scheduled by the train itself. so and i can only see that building in the future we use a platform called rail agent where we're feeding it in all of this data and looking at new ways of really gleaning information from it to make the railway and its assets perform more efficiently in the future and there'll be more and more of that because with increased digitalization and this is a great segue into to something you knew I was going to ask you about, which is the increasing use of artificial intelligence technology to improve efficiency, to potentially help train drivers, maybe drive trains here and there.

33:45How do you see AI manifesting in your organization over the next couple of years? Well, it will grow at a rapid rate, without a doubt. Is that already happening, Rob? It is. We're still finding our way. you know and if i could perhaps actually go back a little bit so our global ceo dr orland bush he made a point at a recent business conference in siemens and siemens and he said ai is once in a century event the last once in a century event was electricity there was life before electricity and life after electricity. And actually Siemens built a sustainable business based on that transformation.

34:34AI is the same. There'll be life before AI and life after AI. And from our perspective, it's around how do we make AI in the virtual world help us in the real world and that's essentially what we will be doing and incidentally the very first artificial intelligence printed circuit board that we did in siemens was actually back in the 90s so it's been around for a while but this pickup you quite rightly say is significant so the way in which we operate as a business, our day-to-day activities are increasingly using AI, but with the appropriate guardrails to make sure that we do that. More critically, and I'll emphasize critically, we are a safety-critical business.

35:30So what we cannot do is rely on artificial intelligence to deal with some of those things where we have to be 100 % sure of the veracity and integrity of what we engineer. So it's how do we get artificial intelligence and realities of safety criticality married perfectly together. That's what we're working on now. And for sure, AI will be improved improve productivity for everybody, not just Siemens, for everybody. I know you guys obviously create software to actually drive trains as well. So I'm assuming that is controlled by a human in a control room. Is there a shift across to that being completely driven by artificial intelligence, or is that already happening?

36:19So artificial intelligence will not, you know, you wouldn't want at this stage artificial intelligence driving trains. There is different stages of supervision where trains could be run with the software that they've got in a totally automated way. DLR is a good example of that. A DLR in London, the light railway in London. That's fully automated, but it's not artificial intelligence, right? What we do have, you know, I mentioned earlier digital conflict resolution, which is a system which looks over the railway, looks over the timetable, and it uses algorithms which have got the intelligence to understand when things are going wrong and how to put them right.

37:08Right. That's a different type of this. It's a very fine line, but it is one safety critical. At this stage, we wouldn't want artificial intelligence automatically operating a railway. we're not there yet yeah no of course of course but the data you're accruing with your current systems is inevitably going to help train potential ai in the future to do this safely because ultimately i think ai is going in a direction where it probably is going to be more safe than humans eventually in this in these type of endeavors surely well i think where we are with it is you know there's a human at the start of the process to say this is the problem statement this is what we want you to do as ai and at the end of it there has to be a human that says is this correct and that's that's how we're operating at the moment in whichever way we apply ai and it remains to be seen really how far it goes i have to say i had a call to arms in the business about some other things and what i said to the team was if you can imagine what the world will be like in a hundred years from a technology perspective then actually that will happen in the next 10 years the reason being is we are changing at such a rate it will get there much quicker rail industry slightly slower to be honest but that's where i think the it's because it's so safety conscious isn't it you know what i mean you have to put that far at the car you know you can't put the cart before the horse you know it has to be led by the safety standards doesn't it so So, yeah.