ERA assesses 2 EU border crossing points, here's what it found
The European Union's Railway Agency (ERA) has presented research that has identified various barriers to rail border crossings that cause significant delays. In rail freight, the biggest delays are caused by technical inspections, ineffective real-time communication and re-numbering of trains.
The study was carried out analyzing two rail freight routes crossing borders in Europe and was presented in Brussels today, Monday 13 December. The study assessed the border between Giurgiu Nord in Romania and Ruse Razpredel in Bulgaria and from Brennero in Italy to the Staatsgrenze nächst Steinach in Tirol in Austria.
ERA proposes "further reduction of national rules and further adaptation of Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI)". The TSIs define the technical and operational standards that must be followed in order to meet the essential requirements and guarantee the compatibility of the EU rail system.
ERA has already published the Acceptable Means of Compliance in early 2022 and states that possible solutions to technical inspection issues are already in the implementation phase. However, it should be noted that the study, by its own admission, did not take into account "the possible side effect arising from several measures taken at the same time."
Fixing these issues would have saved nearly five hours of waiting time
The agency's report emphasizes that railway undertakings (RUs) are "obliged to switch braking modes at border crossings, even if the composition of the train does not change". This procedure leads to a time loss of approximately 20 minutes per train. In addition, technical checks at border crossings, which can take place on both sides of the border, add up to 30 minutes to the wait.
More significant delays are caused, according to the ERA report, by real-time communication problems. The agency is calling for a smoother handover of ETAs and proactive traffic management from a second infrastructure manager. These two solutions would save approximately 116 minutes per train.
Finally, the problem that causes the longest waiting times is the practice of assigning a new train number every time a train crosses a border, even if the train composition does not change. The ERA study claims this process takes an average of 118 minutes per train. This is due to the fact that when a new number is assigned, the train is considered new, and all procedures for preparing the train, as explained in the message.