What we've done < Network Rail Public Engagement Strategy
With a variety of different audience groups, Network Rail has a difficult task
of coordinating its communications consistently from one area to the next.

MPs, residents, local politicians, businesses, lineside neighbours, third party business partners, vendors, suppliers, train operators and others all need to know what is happening and how they will be affected by a business which completes over 3,000 individual rail maintenance and enhancement projects every year.

Research had shown that most of its key stakeholder groups wanted more frequent and better communication from Network Rail, but the company had no provision to deliver.

Game 6 director Michael Shuster spent a year inside Network Rail and delivered a public engagement strategy for the company to implement. “The key for Network Rail’s public engagement process is to create a database record of everybody the company needs to
be communicating with regularly and then to categorise each entry. The overall list runs
into many thousands across the country, but with the total audience assembled and
mapped each function can then take responsibility for managing their bit of it”.

Once the audience has been established and the database created, a series of html message templates are to be created which can be used for anything from event announcements to project newsletters, etc.

With these systems in place, the department then only needs to select a template style,
input the information though an easy-to-use interface and send to the relevant list via email.

Centralised support will assure database management and system integrity; analytics measurement will record audience receptivity.