Europe's unique economic area depends on constantly on-going optimisation and improvements in efficiency. A crucial role here is played by transport policy and in particular by creating a domestic railway network for freight transport. This was decided by the European Commission in the context of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment.
The road network has already reached its limits and is in urgent need of relief in order to take account of the increasing demand for individual transport. Freight transport on the road places a far greater burden on the environment than rail freight transport. Given the high consumption of primary energy, road freight transport will increasingly lose its supposedly higher economic efficiency. The situation has brought about a change of opinion within the European Union. European transport policy wants to set the points for a rail infrastructure which is capable of growing at the same rate as the increasing market demand for transport services.
Since the '90s, influence has been exerted on the "modal split" in favour of the railways in order to balance out the relationship between the modes of transport. But transport services by rail are enhanced not only by upgrading the track facilities. Similar importance is also attributed to more efficient, more intelligent facilities, equipment and operations management, with more efficient rolling stock and simpler processes at the borders, in transport logistics and for the operational staff.

In February 2005, the European Commission and the railway sector agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding to define a European strategy for deployment of ERTMS. The aim was to give priority to implementation of an interoperable European network of six trans-European "MoU Passenger and Freight Corridors". This laid the ground for pan-European implementation of the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI; Directive 96/47/EC and Directive 2001/16/EC) for a trans-European railway network for high-speed and conventional rail transport.

ERTMS Policy

The European rail traffic management system (ERTMS) aims to remedy the lack of technical harmonisation in the area of signalling and speed control – a major obstacle to the development of international rail traffic.

Since 2005, several initiatives have been taken at a European level to facilitate its deployment. The importance of ERTMS for rail market opening and competitiveness led to the appointment in July 2005 of an EU Coordinator for ERTMS, Mr. Karel Vinck.

On the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on 17 March 2005 in Brussels between the European Commission and the main European rail organisations to establish the basic principles for the definition of an EU deployment strategy for ERTMS, Mr. Vinck developed a two-fold approach: the adoption of a unique interoperability standard on the one hand and the deployment of ETCS along six priority rail freight corridors on the other hand.

An interoperability standard is meant to overcome the minor technical differences or "national adaptations" of ETCS standards on the few lines in service and ongoing projects. A first standard – the so-called "SRS 2.3.0d" - was legalised in April 2008. Upon request from railway stakeholders, additional functionalities will be added to that version and will build up a stabilised "Baseline 3" expected to be legalised by the end of 2012.

To pave the way, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 4 July 2008 in Rome between the European Commission and the main European rail organisations to allocate commitments and responsibilities among the main stakeholders as well as to set intermediary deadlines for draft versions of the standard and its testing.

The six rail freight corridors were defined in 2006 out of a shared initiative of the European Commission and CER. A major criterion was that of traffic flows: in 2003, the six corridors represented around 6% of the conventional rail network and 20% of EU rail freight traffic volume. Rail freight was given a priority over high speed rail passenger transport – another major pillar of ERTMS deployment – because of an important catch-up need against other transport modes such as road, in terms of quality of service and, broadly speaking, in terms of economic competitiveness.

Since 2006, all six corridors are politically recognised by the concerned member states by way of Letters of Intent. Some set up a two-layer governance scheme with an Executive Board composed of representatives from the Ministries and a Management Board composed of representatives from the Infrastructure Managers. Three corridors, including Corridor A, went further by founding European Economic Interest Groups.

On 22 July 2009, the six corridors were given legal recognition at EU level through the adoption by the Commission of an ERTMS European deployment plan.

EU Regulation 913/2010

The Regulation concerning a European rail network for competitive freight was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on 22 September 2010 and entered into force on 9 November 2010¹. It has been elaborated with the overall purpose to increase rail freight’s attractiveness and efficiency, with special focus on international traffic, so that rail can increase its competitiveness and market share on the European transport market.

In order to achieve this, the Regulation has the general objective to improve the conditions for international rail freight by reinforcing cooperation at all levels – and especially among infrastructure managers – along selected Rail Freight Corridors, with the twofold aim

(1) to develop the rail freight corridors in terms of capacity and performance in order to meet market demand both quantitatively and qualitatively.

(2) to lay the ground for provision of freight services of good quality meeting customer expectations

The Rail Freight Corridors to be established on the basis of the Regulation are expected to form a European-wide network for competitive freight, making not only cooperation between infrastructure managers within each corridor, but also among them, essential.

The Regulation defines nine initial corridors, out of which the corridor Rotterdam-Genoa (Corridor 1) links Zeebrugge, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Duisburg, Milan and Genoa through Switzerland, thereby including Corridor A as it used to be defined. The wording of the Regulation enables and even encourages to build upon experience and to ensure coherence with the commitments already taken, especially in the field of ERTMS.

As a direct consequence of the Regulation however, the corridor will be added a branch linking Duisburg to Antwerp and Zeebrugge. New topics will have to be included in the scope of its activities, such as the setting up of a One-Stop-Shop for customers and of a clear capacity management scheme within 3 years.

Source: European Commission http://ec.europa.eu

¹http://eur-lex.europa.eu

ERTMS Deployment Plan

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European deployment plan