CER Position on ERTMS Consultation

Members of CER recognise in principle that ERTMS is one key for handling the growing transport flows and volumes in Europe in a sustainable way. The sector will unavoidably have to face in the next decades the obsolescence of national systems, and there is no alternative system but ERTMS for rail networks.

The ERTMS migration strategy is a major issue for RUs and IMs which should not be decided without reference to the railways’ economy and business. Investments for the migration towards ERTMS are potentially high. At best there will be a limited return on investment in the medium term. For the time being it still cannot be excluded that for some entities there will not be any return on investment even in the long term.

Moreover the implementation of ERTMS will increase the burden of maintenance, reliability and operations during the migration phase (double fitting of equipment) without a real improvement in performances by way of compensation (with the existing set of ERTMS specifications). Before an extensive roll-out can start, the ERTMS-specification has to be improved and stabilised to protect performance and investment.

Railway companies need to have visibility on the deployment of ERTMS and on the consistency of implementations (corridors or consistent part of networks). That is essential to build up their strategy and to allow them to invest at the best time depending upon their markets, and replace national systems with ERTMS at the right moment.

• Primary Source

CER: Position papers http://www.cer.be/publications/position-papers

European Commission: DG Energy and Transport: Transport: Rail: Interoperability and safety: ERTMS http://ec.europa.eu/transport/rail/interoperability/ertms/ertms_en.htm

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