Interoperability gains momentum

Interoperability of the European railway network is seen as the necessary condition to support the liberalisation of the railway market, says Frank Walenberg, former Director of KEMA Rail Transport Certification.

“The momentum for implementation of interoperability is increasing rapidly”
-Frank Walenberg

The opening sentence of the Progress Report on the Implementation of the Railway Safety Directive (2004/49/EC) and the Railway Interoperability Directives (96/48/EC and 2001/16/EC) that was published by the European Commission on September 8, 2009 says: "Recent difficulties notwithstanding, rail plays a significant part in the European economy. In 2004 in EU-27, rail transport had an estimated turnover of €60 billion and brought €34 billion added value to the economy, accounting for over 900 000 jobs."

The report gives an excellent overview of the state of affairs and summarises the development. It is therefore not my intention to repeat it here. I would rather like to look ahead at some particular issues that require focus in the next period of time.

The legal framework

Progress has been achieved in establishing the legal framework. Today we may conclude that the legal framework is almost complete. Almost, because some very important TSIs are missing. The TSI for Conventional Rolling Stock is urgently needed. Step 1 is to complete the TSI. In freight transport the success of the corridor approach becomes visible. Locomotives are now being operated over complete corridors. KEMA Rail Transport certification is very proud of its contributions in this area. But the experience of using Cross Acceptance criteria based on the MoU for the DACHINL Corridor and BENEFLUCH Corridor shows us that it still requires a very high degree of discussions with all the National Safety Authorities on a corridor. The TSI Rolling Stock can end this, at least for new rolling stock.

In one or two years the legal framework will be sufficiently complete. It will include everything that is necessary to create and operate a safe, reliable, in short, interoperable railway system. This is a good job done. But it is based on a somewhat artificial structure of the so-called 'Structural Subsystems'. In the real world the interfaces between the Structural Subsystems do not correspond with the interfaces between the stakeholders, which effectively form the market. Therefore my suggestion for step 2:  rearrange the legal framework to reflect the market conditions.

The implementation

The momentum for implementation of interoperability is increasing rapidly. But why am I left with the idea that the introduction of ERTMS/ETCS as one of the main drivers of interoperability is still very much a national argument and not a European one? Numbers of rolling stock put into operation with ETCS are growing. In particular in the Netherlands, for instance, virtually all freight locomotives now have or will soon have ETCS. These locomotives are meant to cross borders, not to stay in the Netherlands. Could we not improve the introduction by giving ETCS an important and maybe for now in many countries only function to manage the STMs? EYCS on board equipment receives the information that is necessary to manage the STMs from the trackside balises. So this can be achieved simply by putting transition balises at the borders between the national railway networks in Europe. This should be included in the European ETCS deployment plan as the first activity. Step 3: make use of the existing ETCS function to manage the STMs.

Sustainability

Where the railway system is seen as a solution for sustainable transport, it is very interesting to see the important progress report, to which I referred above, start with the economical perspective. Sustainability and how the essential requirement for environmental protection is met, is not a topic in the progress report.

Sustainability must be created and improved through innovation within the boundary condition of the legal framework. The current legal framework for interoperability defines some concrete goals for emissions. It does not recognise sustainability as part of an essential requirement. Here is an opportunity for improvement. Step 4: introduce the concept of sustainability into the essential requirements.

And now we are working to create the progress that will be reported in the next report.