Objective

Railway interoperability by means of a harmonised traffic management across Europe is crucial for establishing SERA and cross-border services, while also ensuring the safety of railway operations.

The EU aims to achieve interoperability in this domain through the implementation of the TSI for Operation and Traffic Management or ‘TSI OPE’ (Regulation (EU) 2023/1693 amending Regulation (EU) 2019/773).

TSI OPE defines the responsibilities of IMs and RUs and their staff regarding railway operations and traffic management, e.g.:

• Requirements for staff executing safety-critical tasks,
• Information exchange between IMs and RUs and their staff, in real-time as well as for a ‘Rule Book’ and ‘Route Book’,
• Operational requirements for trains, like train visibility, audibility, and braking,
• Safety of load and passengers, during train preparation and train runs,
• Route compatibility check between rolling stock and infrastructure,
• ERTMS operational rules, 
• Fundamental operational principles and common operational rules, applicable to operations in ERTMS and Class B systems,
• Safety-related communication and operational instructions, including harmonised ‘European Instructions’ from signaller to driver,
• Infrastructure information from an IM to RUs through RINF for route compatibility and a ‘Route Book’ for drivers,
• Operational areas for which national rules are still allowed, like for shunting operations.

EIM in action

EIM’s WG “OPE” (Operations):

• Focuses on operational interfaces between IMs and RUs and their staff, to establish harmonised operational requirements, rules and procedures to the benefit of SERA.
• Participates actively in the ERA OPE Working Party (OPE WP) and the ERA Operational Harmonisation Working Group (OH WG), as well as in the dedicated relevant ERA OH Task Forces, by:
  • Reviewing ERA proposals to amend the TSI OPE following technical developments and innovations, Change Requests and JNS recommendations,
  • Providing feedback and input on operational requirements for harmonised systems, e.g. ERTMS and FRMCS,
  • Introducing proposals to enhance the TSI OPE,
  • Reviewing updates of the TSI OPE Application Guide as well as good practices provided through AMOCs (Acceptable Means Of Compliance).
• Reviews the DG MOVE’s draft versions for a new TSI OPE after the ‘Final Recommendation’ by ERA, to raise awareness on major concerns to Member States and their RISC representatives through an EIM Position Paper.

Objective

IM’s asset management is more and more digitalised. This is particularly the case with predictive maintenance and its interrelated processes. IMs perform a wide range of activities related to data acquisition, the need for which will increase in the future. Given the increasing digitalisation requirements, exchange of information and experiences and a strong cooperation among Infrastructure Managers is needed to ensure innovation uptake and digital reliability in maintenance operations. EIM’s Working Group on Advanced Data Analytics (WG ADA) aims to exchange knowledge on methods and tools related to data science and data analytics methods, based on real use-cases and practical experiences.

EIM in action

• EIM WG ADA promote open discussions during ‘deep dive’ meetings within the EIM membership but also open to other IMs not member of EIM when relevant.   
• EIM continues to foster the information flow and collaboration between the WG ADA with various technical WGs (INF, Telematics, ERTMS) as well as the Innovation Pillar of Europe’s Rail (ERJU).
• EIM also ensures synergies with experts of other EIM “Business” WGs, when relevant, notably with EIM’s WGs on Drones, Asset Management and Cybersecurity.