ERA Work Programme 2022 (2024)

By 2022, the Agency will have consolidated its position as European authority for rail, sustaining an excellent reputation both in technical terms, but also in terms of customer service. From the perspective of its position of authority for delivering vehicle authorisations and ERTMS trackside approvals, the Agency will continue in the period 2022-2024 to drive further the harmonisation towards the Single European Rail Area, in terms of technical and operational interoperability. A section of the harmonisation will be implemented through the System Pillar. The stability of the TSIs, together with a successful cleaning up of the national technical and operational rules are the foundation for an increasingly effective authority function in the field of safety certification, vehicle authorisation and ERTMS trackside approval. In addition, the business helpdesk for the issuance of VA, SSC, and TAs will introduce a satisfaction survey for the applicants, allowing for a continuously improved customer service. Moreover, the Agency will continue to identify related research needs and assess mature innovation products, with a clear potential for market uptake, in order to reflect them into the technical specifications. The Agency will thus contribute to seamless train operations on the EU and an actual unique market for railway services and railway assets.

Within its multi-annual (2022 -2024) work programme, activities under this strategic statement are part of the Agency’s core duties with a high impact on the industry and EU citizens. It will therefore continue to focus on the removal of redundant national rules (operational and technical), the harmonisation of the remaining rules and the development of AMOCs. It will also continue to deliver on its role as sole body responsible for issuing multi-Member State vehicle authorisations and approving ERTMS trackside. The lessons learnt through the issuing of VAs, ERTMS trackside approvals and from the monitoring of NoBos will be used to capture continuous improvement opportunities for the technical specifications and for the authorization procedures. Moreover, the Agency will carry out the TSI 2022 package revision and maintain it, as it is an important milestone in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. In particular, elements such as DAC, Combined Transport, new materials, virtual specifications, noise level limits, EU wide authorisation, and persons with reduced mobility will contribute to Flagship three¹ “Making interurban and urban mobility more sustainable and healthy” and Flagship four² “Greening freight transport”.

Furthermore, an essential part of the decision-making process on which the Agency will continue to contribute is related to facilitating the data exchange for, among various purposes, authorization, registration and route compatibility checks, based on the linked data approach.

When it comes to ERTMS, its future evolutions, which will be introduced via TSI 2022 package revision (i.e., ATO, FRMCS optimisation of breaking curves), they are all supporting the Smart Mobility Strategy and the actions from the smart and sustainable rail such as higher capacity (ATO, breaking curves), and digitalisation (FRMCS).

Moreover, the Agency has triggered its path to convert the EU Railway Registers in building blocks within the European Common Mobility Data Space. In 2020-2021, the Agency transformed and linked together the Register of EU railway infrastructure (RINF) dataset with the European Type of Vehicle (ERATV partly) dataset into a Knowledge graph (~26 million triples), making this data interoperable, findable, and providing semantically enriched machine and human query services. The Agency has followed the Directive 2019/1024 on open data, the EU data strategy, the Data Act -FAIR principles, the principle of technology neutrality, and the EU policy on reference data. In addition, the Agency published 13 datasets in the open data portal. More specifically on the data and digitalization roadmap 2021/2024, it proposes to add gradually new datasets (in-house data) to this knowledge graph as well as links to external datasets to facilitate multimodal data exchange. (i.e. Rail Freight Portal dataset – action 24) and it will be followed by the Agency.

Finally, the Agency will continue to manage the administration of the Joint Network Secretariat, which aims at EU-wide harmonisations of any action taken after the emergence of an issue but will restrict its role to one more aligned with a secretariat function.

The Agency has started to play an important role in promoting further the transformation of the European transport system towards emission-free, sustainable transport modes, which will be based on a multi-modal integration (MaaS and LaaS). By 2022, the Agency will have provided substantial input to the Green Deal deliverables and will have played a key role for driving the data and digitalisation agenda for railways, based on the linked data pilots. This is particularly relevant in a multi-modal context.

For the period 2022-2024, the Agency will continue to play a key role in ensuring the right framework for the data and information exchange related to assets and services (including ticketing data) is put in place, based on linked data and universal data identifiers. This will ensure a seamless exchange of data with other modes of transport, thus allowing the customers to benefit from a comprehensive logistics chain or the mobility-as-a-service, respectively. In addition, the Agency will continue to deliver support and assistance to the EC for the Green Deal, as well as for the coordination of transport of dangerous goods by rail, acknowledging that in many cases the Commission has the leading role.

Furthermore, the efforts made in TAP TSI covering the provision of information to passengers before, during their journey as well as the management of connections between trains and other modes of transport are important elements contributing to a smart and sustainable rail.

In addition, the TAF TSI will provide the data communication requirements for the transparent and efficient traffic management and train operations system of the future including also i) first and last mile logistic segments involving intermodal actors (operators, terminals) and ii) linkage to other modes of transport (road, waterborne). This will also contain the enhanced simple and smart tracking of trains, wagons and consignments. The same TSI will also include additional requirements for the setting up of LaaS starting from consignment order (intermodal compliant), train operation preparation and ending in well-predicted / efficient delivery of trains, wagons and consignments to the business partners.

Based on above goals the Agency has also the ambition to contribute to the identification of bottlenecks, opportunities and areas for improvement to foster a coordinated traffic management at EU level, as well as in the development of harmonised guidelines and the sharing of best practices between the stakeholders to support an optimised traffic management. Other Emerging areas in which the Agency could play an active role include the definition of the technical specifications for hubs, terminals and nodes for intermodal shifts and the specifications for level crossings.

The Agency will continue to work for improving operational safety and overall operational performance of the railway system through the management of major railway operational risks, as well as through positive safety culture, integration of human and organisational factors and the commitment to a continuous learning environment.

Within its multi-annual (2022 -2024) work programme the Agency will continue to focus on enhancing railway safety through positive safety culture and integration of human and organisational factors and on the harmonisation of the safety approach. In 2022, the Agency will start a new cycle of NSA monitoring with a continuation of the targeted approach that has already shown benefits in the first cycle. The lessons learnt through the issuing of SSCs, the monitoring of NSAs, the review of NIB accident investigation reports and the information exchanged during NSA and NIB meetings will be used to continuously improve the common safety methods, as well as the safety certification procedures. An essential element in the safety related decision making on which the Agency will continue to contribute is the improvement of the structure, quality and availability of safety relevant data.

The Agency will endeavour to make sure that the rules and system specifications are smart, proportionate and contribute to the competitiveness of the industry. It will also make sure that the SSC and VA processes are cost and time saving for railway undertakings, fostering the entrance of new operators in the market.

As presented in previous strategic statements, the agency aims at evaluating the economic impact of the vehicle authorisation and issuing of single safety certificate processes on the railway sector, the impact of the TSIs as a package, of market opening and competition and of modular interchangeability in the ERTMS system specifications. The Agency will look at safety improvements from a cost-effectiveness perspective. The results of the assessments will be used to propose recommendations for improving the legal texts, as well as any non-regulatory instruments, in the spirit of the Better Regulation principles.

Furthermore, the important work on women in transport, which should lead to the strengthening of women's employment and equal opportunities for women and men in the transport sector will be pursued. Indeed, many studies have shown that gender parity in the workforce increases the productivity and the cohesion of staff. In addition, gender parity increases diversity of views, which in itself brings innovative solutions.

The Agency will continue in strengthening international cooperation in rail by following the EC international relations agenda, continue its collaboration with European and international standardization organizations and deploy “ERA academy”, its dissemination and training service. Furthermore, the Agency will strive to make EU authorisations internationally recognized and will focus on the EC priorities in terms of technical and geographical areas, and will also provide the requested analyses and support. If grant is extended beyond 2022, the Agency will continue the IPA and/or the EUMed Rail projects.

In 2022-2024, the Agency will further build the ERA academy with the integration of its e-learning environment. The ERA Academy will also be instrumental in disseminating the valuable research and material developed in our policy work to our partners and stakeholders. This is particularly true in the field of rail safety. In addition, the Agency will propose webinars on a variety of subjects under the expertise of the Agency.

Furthermore, the Agency will continue to identify related research needs and assess mature innovation products, with a clear potential for market uptake, in order to reflect them into the technical specifications. This work will however be carried out at a slower pace, due to budgetary constraints.

If the Agency had more budget, it could strengthen its international presence in relevant fora. The Agency could be instrumental in supporting third countries to develop safe, efficient, and reliable railways, according to established European standards. The Agency could present the innovations in the European market and encourage their developments in other parts of the world. This would increase the Agency’s global recognition in the field and support the dissemination of the European approach.

The Agency will make sure: that its portfolio of activities is planned in a sound manner, in line with its long term strategy and the intervention logic model; that the outcomes and impacts of the its work are always at the core of its decisions; that there is a clear link between the outcomes/impacts and the Agency’s projects and services, including their outputs; that the delivery, monitoring and reporting of the Agency’s projects and services are coordinated in the spirit of efficiency and performance and that they are properly communicated to the public.

The Agency will also manage its networks of NSAs, NIBs, and RBs in an efficient manner, which will lead to the exchange of information on safety and interoperability among its stakeholders, providing therefore value for money. These networks also provide essential information such as railway safety data, and implementation of the Union’s legislation, which enables the Agency to ensure an efficient governance of its portfolios.

The Agency also recognises that digitalisation is essential to a successful European railway area and has a strategic ambition to become a reference for facilitating the multi-modal data exchange and queries, based on the data-centric architecture and the linked data technology, following the pilots developed in 2020 and the mainstreaming of linked data approached afterwards.

The Agency’s gender balance data