The European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) has recently approved various amendments to the Capacity Management Directive, part of the Greening Freight Package. The main new aspects introduced are the creation of a European Railway Undertaking Platform (ERP), a new role for the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and additional recommendations concerning digitalisation.
The amendments proposed by TRAN Committee member Tilly Metz also suggest that EU Member States shall provide infrastructure managers with multiannual funding plans. They would provide information on the maintenance, renewal and new construction of rail infrastructure for a rolling period of at least 5 years via the multiannual performance agreement.
Most of the amendments, including the establishment of ERP, were generally welcomed by the European rail sector. Both the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) and the Community of European Railway & Infrastructure Companies (CER), which was quite vocal about this, both praised this initiative. However, the two bodies seem to disagree on a couple of points. ERFA judged positively the enhanced role given to the European Network of Regulatory Bodies (ENRRB), which would be more involved in consultations. On the other hand, CER said that its role “should remain limited to ex-post supervisory intervention”.
The role of ERA
The amended proposal also includes a bigger role for the ERA. The Agency should, for example, work with the European Commission (EC) in drafting, implementing and delegating acts. CER, however, thinks that ERA should stick to its current scope in Digital Capacity Management as well as performance review. The amendments also point out that the current ERA’s resources are not enough to support this increase in tasks. To make up for this, the TRAN committee suggested that additional funds should come “from the unallocated margins under MFF ceilings or mobilised through the non-thematic MFF special instruments”.
The European Railway Undertaking Platform
The ERP would comprise representatives of railway undertakings using EU rail infrastructure. The EC and ERA would have an observer role. The former would establish modalities of functioning of and admission to the platform. The latter would support the European Network of Infrastructure Managers (ENIM) to create an EU framework for performance reviews. As ERFA underlined, a body such as the ERP is necessary to ensure constant communication between infrastructure managers and railway undertakings. In other words, ERP would function as a clear counterpart to the ENIM, ensuring a more seamless planning process that involves all interested parties.
New guidelines for digitalisation
Some of the amendments revolve around digitalisation. One entails the creation of a European digital system. This would provide a digital display of capacity models and a tool to submit multi-network annual capacity requests and receive answers in a single place and operation, which would be operative from the timetable period 2027. In addition, a digital display and tool for coordination of temporary capacity restrictions and a capacity broker for requesting multi-network capacity shall be ready to launch by the timetable period 2029. Finally, the so-called European Capacity Management tool should be activated by the timetable period 2030.
The second one envisions the implementation of a European digital system as a support of the European traffic management network concept for the traffic management processes. This would provide for a European-wide overview of multi-network train runs from origin to destination as of the date of application of the Regulation. Moreover, a regular exchange of information on the estimated time of arrival should be deployable by December 2027 and a reporting of incidents to or via this common system by December 2030. Finally, by December 2030, a common platform for communication and cooperation between national traffic control centres should be established.
Also read: