High Speed 1

In 2018, Aduro built the platform that powers an operational survey app for the owner of St Pancras International Station, managed by High Speed 1 (HS1) and Network Rail High Speed. Aduro led the data and software architecture — making executive decisions on how service standards, survey data and fault reporting should be structured before development began.

St Pancras International had been recognised as the UK's number one station for customer satisfaction since it reopened. However, the station had recently lost that position. For it to return to number one, HS1 and Network Rail High Speed needed to plan and implement improvements based on service standards — delivering the basics to a high standard and helping deliver the "World's Leading High-Speed Rail experience".

HS1 commissioned a service standards iPad app called What Good Looks Like, based on a four-tier service framework. Teams walk the station in a preset order, scoring services against agreed criteria or reporting faults that need immediate action.

Turning standards into something teams can act on

Aduro was brought in to design the platform that stores service standards and survey data, and delivers it to the iPad app in the field. Our expertise was in understanding how HS1 teams actually work — how walks are structured, how scores are recorded, and when a fault needs to escalate — then making the architectural decisions that shaped the platform around that reality.

That meant executive decisions on how survey data mapped to the four-tier framework, how information flowed between the platform and the app, and how the architecture would extend as HS1's requirements evolved — not just building to a specification, but defining the specification itself.

Reliable in the field, maintained for the long term

Since delivery in 2018, Aduro has managed deployment and security for the platform, keeping it performant as teams complete surveys across the station. The architectural choices made at the outset — how data is organised, accessed and kept consistent — continue to support fast, dependable access to standards and reporting where decisions actually get made.