The socioeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to increase further across economies. There is increasing apprehension on the status of rail transport infrastructure megaprojects which are already complex and face many uncertainties and it is imperative to initiate a restoration coupled with support to be implemented in a timely manner. Investors continue to invest in rail megaprojects that run high risks of being over-scheduled and over-budgeted, which has raised the need to improve rail megaporjects and their investments in order to establish the economic base of any society. Hence it is vital to analyse the systemic risks in rail megaprojects given their complexity and uncertainty towards developing an efficient risk management framework. To improve the performance of the procurement of rail megaprojects, the present study conducts a detailed literature review to explore the key procurement risk indicators and critical success factors for public procurement of rail megaprojects. The key findings are used to develop an integrated approach towards a systemic transformative adaptation to enable the effective incorporation of the procurement risk management process into the planning and decision-making of rail megaprojects in the UK. This study develops a conceptual framework that indicates that one of the most critical enablers of improvement in the performance of procurement of rail megaprojects is by enabling a collaborative approach. This is a unique study that presents key procurement risk indicators and critical success factors to derive sustainability based enablers to improve the performance of the procurement process of rail megaprojects
