EU-wide Railway at low level status of deployment

Deployment of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), an EU-wide railway signalling system is proceeding at a very low-level, according to a new report from European Court of Auditors. In assessing if the ERTMS had been proper planned, deployed and managed, the auditors visited Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands and detected a reluctance from infrastructure managers to invest in the necessary equipment due the expense and a lack individual business cases.
October 6, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Deployment of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), an EU-wide railway signalling system is proceeding at a very low-level, according to a new report from European Court of Auditors.


In assessing if the ERTMS had been proper planned, deployed and managed, the auditors visited Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands and detected a reluctance from infrastructure managers to invest in the necessary equipment due the expense and a lack individual business cases.   

There is also no overall cost estimate to establish necessary funding and its sources, while the legal obligations introduced did not cover decommissioning of national rail systems. The report also revealed a lack of alignment with deadlines and priorities included within the EU transport policy.

The auditors make a series of recommendations for the EC, the Member States and the 1816 European Union Agency for Railways concerning the assessment of deployment costs; decommissioning of national signalling systems and individual business cases for infrastructure managers and railway undertakings. In addition it identifies the compatibility and stability of the system; the role and resources of the European Union Agency for Railways; alignment of national deployment plans, monitoring and enforcement; improved take-up of EU funds for rail signalling projects; and better targeting of EU funding.

UTC

Related Content

  • December 5, 2013
    FOTsis targets ‘socially inclusive’ cooperative ITS
    The FOTsis project addresses the imbalances between the vehicular and infrastructure sides of cooperative ITS infrastructures and looks to ensure road operators can help to enrich future technology applications. By Jason Barnes. Several developments have conspired to push the vehicular side of cooperative infrastructures/cooperative ITS to the fore in recent years. The automotive industry’s rather shorter product development and lifecycles combined with economic slowdown in many regions gave rise to the not
    Read More
  • July 31, 2014
    EU supports key TEN-T infrastructure projects
    In the last Calls of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) Programme, the European Commission selected a total of 106 projects that will benefit from over US$428 million in EU support for improving transport infrastructure across Europe. The 52 projects selected from the 2013 Multi-Annual Call and 54 from the 2013 Annual Call will use the EU’s financial support to bring forward the completion of the TEN-T network as well as studying innovative ways of reducing the transport sector’s carbon footprint.
    Read More
  • August 20, 2015
    Promoting cycling is the solution to congestion and pollution
    Cycling offers health, air quality and road space/parking benefits, promoting governments and the EU to look at tax and technology initiatives. David Crawford reports. One way to improve urban air quality is to make green alternatives to car use financially attractive. Incentivising employees to switch their travel-to-work mode to using their own bikes could increase cycling’s modal share of commuting travel by 50%, a recent French research project suggests. The country’s government already subsidises pu
    Read More
  • March 1, 2013
    HeERO - harmonising e-Call across Europe
    The second stage of the EC’s HeERO project, which aims to address some of the issues surrounding the eCall system, has just got underway. Jason Barnes reports. As the European Commission (EC)’s Har­monised eCall European Pilot (HeERO) project progresses into its second stage, ‘HeERO 2’, significant progress has already been made in addressing the technological and institutional issues relating to the pan-European deployment of an eCall system based around the new ‘112’ universal emergency telephone number.
    Read More

Highlighted Content