Teaming up for the better: SQUAKE's Rail Emission Model Adopts Official GB Green Travel Data by Rail Delivery Group, Moving Beyond National Averages.

SQUAKE and Rail Delivery Group (RDG) make Green Travel Data (GTD), Britain's station-to-station rail emissions dataset, available inside SQUAKE's Rail Emission Model (REM). GTD goes live in REM with SQUAKE's next release, targeted already for autumn 2026 with Britain’s travellers benefitting from the highest-granularity dataset in the GB market to date. 

In recent years, rail has been treated as the preferred low-carbon choice against flying, but the emissions math behind that assumption has rarely held up to scrutiny. Methodologies differ by country, by energy mix, by operator; and few give a reporting team any way to tell which numbers came from real operational data and which were extrapolated. SQUAKE built REM so that travel and sustainability teams have one methodology to work from regardless of the market it operates in. GTD is what that methodology looks like in practice once accurate, granular data actually exists to feed it.

Most corporate rail-emissions reporting still relies on a national or operator average applied to an estimated distance — for much of the world, that remains the only option. Britain is no longer one of those places. For a travel manager weighing rail against air travel, or a finance team preparing an assured disclosure under CSRD/ESRS, the practical difference is that the number is built from the train types, formations and loadings on that specific station pair, not a national average. 

GTD covers the National Rail network, with data supplied by all British train operators, including every government-contracted service. Train type, formation and passenger loadings come from MOIRA; electric traction energy comes from Network Rail's EC4T data; diesel figures come from owner and operator reporting. Distances are actual distances travelled, taken from the Network Rail distance database — accurate enough that REM's detour correction, the estimate REM applies wherever exact route data isn't available, simply isn't needed for British calculations. Standard and first class are reported separately.  RDG has voluntarily adopted the Code of Practice for Statistics and is listed on the Office for Statistics Regulation's register of voluntary application. 

Inside REM, GTD is configurable. Where a partner reports British rail travel and elects to use it, REM resolves the station pair against GTD and labels the result accordingly. Every calculation returns the same audit metadata REM provides at any tier: the method it resolved at, the distance used, the emission factor source and its vintage, so a reporting team can see exactly which GB trips were priced on GTD, which fell back to an operator or national figure, and why. 

GTD is the first station-to-station national dataset REM adopts this way, and it won't be the last. REM works as a fallback hierarchy that reaches the most specific data available and discloses what it settled for; national datasets sit at the top of that hierarchy. SNCF's Info GES in France or Deutsche Bahn’s CO2 kompass in Germany is planned to follow the same route, as will any comparable national source.  

Philipp von Lamezan, CEO of SQUAKE said:

“Modal shift towards rail is one of the key drivers in sustainable travel adoption. Rail emission factors are not a solved problem, and they are not solved the same way in any two countries.

 “RDG has built one of the strongest national rail datasets anywhere, so the sensible thing is to use it rather than model around it.” 

Paul Bowden, Rail Delivery Group Commercial Director said:

“What started as a single-route pilot in 2023 has grown into one of the most comprehensive rail emissions datasets in the world.

“Together, RDG and SQUAKE are helping travel managers, sustainability teams and businesses make better-informed decisions with trusted, data-driven insight, supporting the transition to more sustainable travel and more robust environmental reporting”

REM is free to use, and its full methodology is published for industry review at squake.earth/resources/rail-emission-model-whitepaper. The methodology is available at no cost through the travel management companies and online booking tools SQUAKE and the Travalyst Coalition already partner with. GB Travel Managers can speak to their Account Manager for details, and organisations that want GTD enabled for their GB rail reporting can contact SQUAKE.