Long train running

Frank Walenberg explains how more legislation from Europe is having an effect on the railway products market and details how this change is going to impact the future of the industry.

What can you tell us about the impact that increased European legislation is having on the railway product market?
Frank Walenberg. The impact currently is very large, and what’s more, it is still growing. Firstly certain components must comply with European directives in general, and then under the interoperability directives, a number of components must comply there as well to specific railway requirements. In addition, complete systems like infrastructure systems must comply with European directives as well. There is no way around it.

Then, apart from European and national legislation, certification is also undertaken on a voluntary basis thanks to agreements made by manufacturers and clients. This means that clients can establish the specification that your suppliers’ products and processes have to meet. Then, as a supplier, you have to be able to show that you meet these standards.

In effect, we depend very much on European legislation and that obviously has a very important impact on us.

So how are your products helping those in the industry to understand the specific requirements that the railway system have to meet?
FW. I think there’s two ways. One is through a very formal way, which covers the fact that these certain certificates have to be issued. They are mandatory; they must be done. That’s one way, but the other way is, of course, in the many different phases we assist in, in not only having the certificates, because that’s our verification, but also in integrating the components and the sub-systems into the railway system. So we provide verification, through testing and in discussions with authorities, to put the equipment into operation. We also assist in integration testing and things like that.

Then, within the voluntary domain, co-operating railway companies have established rules in the UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de fer) for the application of voluntary certification. It is expected that these rules, which align with the OTIF (International treaty for the exchange of rolling stock between railways) will soon be split into rules for technical acceptance and rules for exploitation.

Then, the products and processes involved in technical acceptance will have to be certified on a mandatory basis, while for exploitation voluntary certification should prove to be sufficient.

And how are the notable trends within the fields of safety, reliability, and availability shaping the future of the industry?
FW. I think the biggest change that we will see in the future is that Europe is likely to play an even more important role in the market than it does already. So many of the things already associated with these interoperability directives will also come under the safety directives that are gradually being applied to the market.

For instance, the requirements for safety assessment, up until now, are more or less undefined, but they are now becoming more defined through the European rules. Subsequently, as the number of European requirements also increases, we now see a large number of these items growing and the importance and the influence from Europe is growing with it.

Frank Walenberg is the director of Kema Rail Transport Certification, the notified body for mandatory and voluntary certification of all railway products and systems in the Netherlands, which performs certification, assessment and verification under European directives and European rules for interoperability.