29 May 2026
C-RIS submission – ARISO calls for generational change
Like many in the industry, ARISO has made a submission to the National Transport Commission’s Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement (C-RIS) on the Rail Safety National Law (RSNL).
ARISO sees this as an opportunity to embed a suite of decisions made by Infrastructure and Transport Ministers Meeting (ITMM) through the National Rail Action Plan (NRAP) and the RSNL review to strengthen the connection between safety and productivity and recognise ARISO’s role as the national standards authority.
After 20 years of low rates of adoption and continued fragmentation and escalation of costs and inefficiencies, our submission calls for interoperability and national standards to be strengthened in the law to drive real change, in addition to regulatory application of a hierarchy of national mandatory and harmonised standards.
We have highlighted the importance of interoperability as a mechanism to achieve safety at the system level, and we believe open access to quality standards coupled with greater recognition in the law would help lift low rates of adoption.
Our C-RIS submission supports the National Transport Commission’s option for greater recognition of ARISO standards and the link between accreditation and mandatory participation in standards development.
Increasing the quality and take up of rail standards is pivotal to harmonisation, increasing interoperability in the rail sector and boosting productivity and safety, which are inextricably connected. The current 11% adoption rate of Australian standards is insufficient.
Our membership needs to be much broader and stronger to lift the quality and assurance of new standards going forward and to give industry the implementation support it needs.
Only 41 of the 198 accredited Rail Transport Operators are currently ARISO members. And of the 53 accredited RTOs on the National Network for Interoperability (NNI) where mandatory standards will apply, only 22 are ARISO members.
On principle, we need all of industry to be at the table when developing standards and rules that will impact the entire rail ecosystem. When we looked at how other nations and industries achieve harmonisation that drives safety and productivity, it often involves a link between accreditation, mandatory participation and universal standards access.