EUROPE: A new approach to the roll-out of ERTMS is urgently needed, according to the European Rail Freight Association.
ERFA has warned that specification changes, national divergences and the absence of a business case for train operators mean that ERTMS risks losing its original purpose of improving interoperability.
ERFA believes specifications are evolving faster than ERTMS is being deployed, which acts as an ‘innovation killer’ for manufacturers that are overburdened with fulfilling new requirements. Meanwhile operators are facing ‘explosive’ costs and the risk of substantial investments quickly becoming obsolete.
To address this, on February 13 ERFA said:
- the EU should minimise specification changes, with a stable, reliable and multi-annual standard to be deployed throughout the network before any significant changes are added;
- ERTMS deployment plans should recognise that 50% of freight trains cross at least one national border. Only 14% of the core network is equipped with ERTMS, and diverging national implementations are an obstacle to interoperability;
- ERTMS users should be consulted on the development of deployment plans that are reliable, consistent and consider backwards compatibility, with the European Commission gaining powers to supervise implementation;
- the EU should minimise and harmonise test specifications to avoid operators facing an ‘uncontrolled diversity’ of tests. ERFA says the average time needed for software approval for an international vehicle is at least a year, representing ‘an enormous bottleneck for cross-border traffic and a major cost driver for operators’;
- the EU should focus technological funding on ERTMS deployment given its importance for achieving the Single European Railway Area.
In January the Association of European Rail Rolling stock Lessors launched its own manifesto also calling for the less ambitious but more co-ordinated ERTMS deployment. It said ERTMS is currently ‘a patchwork of increasingly expensive technologies’ and changes are needed to avoid rail pricing itself out of the freight market.
