Corporate report: RAIB: Annual Report 2025 (published 2026)

Rail Accident Investigation Branch report for the operational period ending 31 December 2025.

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The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has published its annual report covering the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. The report summarises operational and investigative activity undertaken by the Branch during the year.

The report also highlights five themes which have run through the Branch’s work during 2025. These are: trackworker safety, platform safety, asset integrity, level crossings, and overspeeding.

Between 1 January and 31 December 2025, we received 488 notifications. From these we conducted 54 preliminary examinations to determine the course of action required. This resulted in 16 becoming full investigations, with a further 8 becoming safety digests.

In 2025 we published 10 full investigation reports. The average time to publish these was 11.7 months. We also published 6 safety digests, issued an urgent safety advice to the industry, and published an interim report as an update to an ongoing investigation.

1.The sole purpose of RAIB investigations is to prevent future accidents and incidents and improve railway safety. RAIB does not establish blame, liability or carry out prosecutions.

2.RAIB operates, as far as possible, in an open and transparent manner. While our investigations are completely independent of the railway industry, we do maintain close liaison with railway companies and if we discover matters that may affect the safety of the railway, we make sure that information about them is circulated to the right people as soon as possible, and certainly long before publication of our final report.