Policy paper

Supporting a fair and open rail retail market: House of Lords Railways Bill factsheet

Updated 9 October 2026

Our rail retail factsheet explained that Great British Railways’ (GBR) retail functions, including its website and app, will be integrated into its wider operational business. This model reflects the fact that GBR is a passenger service operator, not simply an online retailer and that it will have a range of objectives as set out in the long-term rail strategy and in its business plan.

Providing online retail functions as part of its integrated business will support economies of scale for the taxpayer and a joined-up experience for customers, avoiding fragmentation that has held back the railway from delivering in the past.

It will allow GBR to create joined-up strategies across its whole business and between retail channels online, at stations and on the train, creating a consistent experience for passengers.

We also set out that GBR should compete alongside other retailers in a fair and open online retail market. Competition in the online retail market has motivated improvements for passengers, making it easier and more convenient for them to buy tickets.

Together, this means GBR will hold a unique position in the market. It will define the passenger offer, sell tickets online, while also being responsible for access and governance arrangements for the online retail market, sometimes referred to as ‘market-wide’ functions. It will also compete with other retailers.

As recognised in the response to the Railways Bill consultation, this creates potential conflicts that GBR must manage.

As a result, government committed to a code of practice, enforced by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) through GBR’s licence, to ensure that GBR is subject to clear requirements as to how to manage its potential conflicts of interest.

The code of practice sits alongside other frameworks to support a fair and open retail market, including GBR’s financial framework for passenger services and competition law. This factsheet sets out more detail on the code and the wider framework.

Retail code of practice

The retail code of practice is the primary tool to support GBR in managing the potential conflicts that result from its multiple roles in relation to online retail. It will be owned, managed and enforced by the ORR, building upon its role as competition regulator for the sector concurrently with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The code establishes key principles and expectations in advance, rather than relying only on action after harm has occurred. It does not prescribe specific solutions, but will require GBR to develop its organisational structure, governance, policies and decision-making processes in ways that support a fair, open and effective online retail market that delivers for passengers and taxpayers.

The code has 6 core principles, set out below.

Managing conflicts of interest

GBR must identify, manage and mitigate actual and/or perceived conflicts of interest arising from its exercise of market-wide retail functions alongside its participation in retail activities, including through appropriate:

• governance arrangements
• organisational arrangements
• operational arrangements

This principle means that GBR will have to consider how it manages its business to ensure that it does not self-preference when making decisions that affect other retailers. GBR will need to put measures in place to ensure that these conflicts are managed.

Fair, open and effective retail market

GBR must exercise its market‑wide retail functions in a manner that supports a fair and open retail market, considering its wider objectives.

Decisions in relation to market-wide retail functions must be taken on a fair, objective basis and with due consideration of impacts on the online retail market and consumer confidence. It must not confer undue preference or advantage on GBR’s retail activities or any retailer.

Fair access to products, systems and data

Access to rail products, systems, data and related services must be:

• provided on fair, transparent and non-discriminatory terms
• supporting equivalence of treatment across retailers unless differences are reasoned and proportionate

Retailers rely on access to rail products, shared systems and accurate data from GBR to serve their customers.

This principle will mean, for example, that GBR will not be able to run exclusive fare promotions that customers of other retailers cannot purchase, as train operating companies historically have.

It also means that GBR must provide data that retailers need to sell tickets, like fares, reservations and timetables on an equal basis. This doesn’t mean GBR must share its own commercially sensitive passenger data.

Robust information governance and safeguarding – protecting sensitive information

Information used in support of market-wide retail functions must be managed with appropriate standards of:

• governance
• confidentiality
• security and access control

It must not be used to confer an undue commercial or competitive advantage on GBR.

GBR will be entrusted with other retailers’ commercially sensitive information, for example, the sales data that enables industry-wide revenue settlement. This information must be safeguarded as a trusted asset for its intended purposes only.

Commitment to proportionate active and reactive monitoring and compliance

Arrangements must be in place for GBR to:

• monitor compliance with this code
• identify risks or issues
• support proportionate and transparent compliance activity, including taking corrective action where appropriate

GBR will manage its day-to-day compliance and resolve most issues before escalation. ORR will ensure compliance, using a set of remedies set out in the code, which are sufficient to ensure any harms are identified and rectified quickly and efficiently.  

Retailers may raise a concern to ORR if they believe GBR has breached the code. Alternatively, ORR may act on concerns identified through its own monitoring and, as a last step, undertake licence enforcement action.

Proportionate and consultative approach to market-wide change

Changes linked to GBR’s market-wide retail functions must be developed and implemented in a reasonable, consultative and proportionate manner and with due consideration of the impacts on the online retail market. 

GBR will own its product offer, meaning the fares and services available to passengers. When GBR changes this offer, it can have a material effect on other retailers. It is important that other online retailers can adapt their websites to effectively retail new fares and products.

GBR’s funding for retail

Fairness and transparency of GBR’s funding for passenger services is another aspect of the framework to support a fair and open online retail market.

GBR’s retail functions are a core part of providing passenger services. GBR will provide a broad range of retail and customer-facing activities, with many of its costs shared across online and physical retail, achieving economies of scale for the taxpayer and a joined-up experience for customers.

For example, GBR will rely on many of the same systems to sell tickets at stations as it does online. It will provide live service information through its website and station platform information boards. Its customer service centre will help passengers with any enquiry, not just their ticket purchase

Consequently, GBR will not be required to operate under the same commercial terms as an independent online ticket retailer. Instead, GBR’s passenger services will be funded through a public service contract under the Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023 and captured as part of GBR’s integrated business plan.

Under this framework, funding will be linked to delivery of specified activities, including GBR’s retail activities. Compensation cannot exceed the net financial effect of providing those obligations. GBR cannot divert funding from its infrastructure activities into passenger services activities.

This will provide greater transparency of retailing costs than train operators do today but will not facilitate identical comparisons between GBR’s costs and those of an independent retailer. This is because of the different nature of GBR’s integrated passenger service business, its broader role in retailing online, at stations and on trains and the aggregated nature of GBR’s costs.

Under existing powers, the ORR can request access to information needed to assure and enforce GBR’s compliance with competition law.

GBR will also need to act in line with competition law when using its public funding and discharging its functions. It will need to act in a way that does not exclude competitors, distort the online retail market or abuse a dominant position.

The ORR and CMA are concurrent competition regulators for the rail sector and would be expected to act if GBR were using its funding in an anti-competitive way.

The code, financial framework and competition law, therefore, operate together. The code manages the conflicts of interest arising from its integrated role, while the financial framework ensures GBR is funded transparently and to a level commensurate with the costs of fulfilling the functions it has been asked to provide by the Secretary of State for Transport.

Competition law provides protection against anti-competitive conduct in the way that funding is used and functions are discharged.

Great Britain already has one of the most competitive online rail retail markets in Europe, with independent retailers holding a significant share of the online market. This framework will ensure all retailers can continue to compete and the benefits of an integrated GBR can be realised without putting at risk the choice and innovation that an open and fair retail market provides for passengers

Next steps

ORR will now consult on the draft code. ORR will consider the consultation responses before submitting the final code to the Secretary of State for Transport for approval in spring 2027.