This progress report on the implementation of the Railway Safety
Directive and of the Railway interoperability Directives describes the stage
reached so far in implementing the Railway Safety Directive and in achieving
interoperability of the European rail system since the first report adopted
by the Commission in November 2006 (see COM(2006)0660).
It responds to Article 31 of the Railway
Safety Directive, Article 24 of the high-speed
Interoperability Directiveand Article 28 of the conventional
rail Interoperability Directive.
Moreover, it
builds on the findings of the first biennial report on the development of
railway safety in the European Community issued by the European Railway Agency
in 2008.
To prepare for
this report, the European Commission commissioned a study analysing the degree
of implementation of rail interoperability and safety legislation and
progress in the field, and carried out a public consultation. The results of
the consultation are summarised in the annex to this report.
It should be
noted that recent amendments to the legal framework for railway safety and
interoperability have not been considered in this report as they are still
being transposed at national level.
The main
finding are as follows:
- Transposition
by Member States: all Member States have
notified the Commission of their national measures implementing the Railway
Safety Directive, except for Luxembourg, against which infringement
proceedings are still open. However, in several cases transposition has
been delayed and did not meet the legal deadline specified in the
Directive (30 April 2006). The next step is to check that all provisions
of the Directive have been correctly implemented; this includes
conformity checks and detailed analyses to verify, for example, the
capacity of the national bodies to perform the tasks required by the
Directives. These analyses are still in hand and it is therefore too
early to draw final conclusions on this issue. However, some initial
results are available on the notification of national safety rules and
the setting up of national bodies.
- National
safety rules and notification: almost 5000
national safety rules have been notified. On request of the Commission
the Agency has examined these notifications and recommended asking for
clarification or renotification of national safety rules by most Member
States. As for the question of publishing the national safety rules, in
2009 the Agency is expected to propose ways to improve access.
- Setting
up of national authorities and bodies: the
role of the national safety authorities (NSA) is critical both in
maintaining safety and in ensuring that safety is not a barrier to
market opening when developing interoperability. Most of the NSAs were
established in 2006 and 2007. At the end of 2008 there was only one Member
State that had not yet established its NSA. Member States must also set
up independent investigation bodies charged with investigating serious
railway accidents. By April 2009, only one Member State had not yet set
up its national investigation body (NIB). The Agency has established
networks to facilitate cooperation and sharing of views and experience
by these national bodies.
- Development and implementation of secondary legislation at
European level: the
Railway Safety Directive provides for a large amount of secondary
legislation to be adopted by the Commission and drafted by the Agency
based on mandates issued by the Commission. In 2007 the first instrument
was adopted: Commission Regulation (EC) No 653/2007 on the use of a
common European format for safety certificates and application documents
in accordance with Article 10 of Directive 2004/49/EC and on the
validity of safety certificates delivered under Directive 2001/14/EC. Common
safety methods for risk assessment and to assess achievement of safety
targets were respectively adopted on 24 April 2009 and 5 June
2009 while further legislation is in preparation.
- Safety Certification: further information on the status of safety certification, and
a proposed strategy for migration towards a single Community safety
certificate, will be produced by the Agency in 2010 based on an evaluation
of the safety certification procedures in the Member States.
- Safety Reporting:NSAs must publish annual reports giving information on the
railway safety situation. The Agency uses these reports to continuously
monitor the development of railway safety in the EU. Overall, initial
figures confirm that railways are very safe for rail users, with fewer
than 100 fatalities annually compared to about 40 000 on EU roads.
Furthermore, the development of railway safety in the EU Member States
can be regarded as very positive, as the number of passenger fatalities
went down from around 400 in 1970 to only 58 in 2006. However, figures
show that there is high representation of third parties in fatal railway
accidents such as trespassers and level crossing users (together around
1 500 fatalities per year). Suicides constitute another particular
feature of rail accidents: these fatalities are not reported as
accidents and they are seldom subject to press reports. In 2006 they
accounted for about 2 300, i.e. more than 60% of all fatalities.
- Implementation of the Interoperability Directives: all Member States have notified
national measures implementing the Interoperability Directives 96/48/EC
(High-Speed), Directive 2001/16/EC (Conventional Rail) and Directive 2004/50
(alignment of High-Speed and Conventional Rail Directives and extension
of the scope).
Main
conclusions: the Commission considers that the
progress made thanks to the Community regulatory framework for railway safety
and interoperability should encourage further development of the internal
rail market, helping the emergence of new businesses, the cutting of
entry costs and, ultimately, the competitiveness of rail as compared to other
modes of transport. The analyses carried out in this report show mixed
results for the time being.
1) As for
rail safety, statistics indicate that the railway
system in the Community is safe and the organisational changes stemming from
the Community framework not only had no negative impact on safety but are
expected to raise safety levels in the short and medium terms. From the
market perspective, safety requirements still impose significant entry
barriers. These relate mainly to the cost and the duration of the
procedures involved at national level, their disparity across Europe and the lack of transparency/predictability. Substantial progress in this field is
expected, partly due to the harmonisation of safety certificates for railway undertakings
and the introduction of Common Safety Methods, and partly due to the
cross-acceptance of national rules when authorising the placing into service
of rail vehicles.
The success of
these activities will depend on two conditions:
- the full
establishment of the newly created bodies, especially national
safety authorities (NSAs), operating at similar levels of competence and
efficiency. This is necessary to create mutual trust between NSAs. The
Commission will therefore continue to check that Community legislation
has been correctly transposed as far as new structures and tools are
concerned;
- the leading role
of the European Railway Agency in gradually harmonising safety rules and
procedures and progressively replacing them with common methods.
This role may evolve even further in the future towards complementing or
supplementing the activities of NSAs in the certification and
authorisation processes;
2) The
secondary legislation on interoperability is
expected to be completed in 2010 as far as the TEN-T network is concerned.
This is certainly a priority for the Commission, as no real interoperability
can be achieved without technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs)
for all sub-systems. Another priority for the Commission is to manage the
transition from the old regime to the new regime created by the TSIs and the
registers of infrastructure and rolling stock.
Moreover, the
increasing number of conformity certificates issued for sub-systems and the
limited number of derogations indicate that, overall, the existing TSIs are
being successfully applied. This also underlines the importance of
Notified Bodies and their role in increasing competence and mutual trust.
However, residual open points in TSIs and the limited geographical scope of
the TSIs may hamper the future integration of the European rail system as
they constitute obstacles to interoperability. Therefore it will be essential
to close the open points and to extend the scope of TSIs in a reasonably
short period of time.
The Commission
also notes that progress towards interoperability is a slow process. Because
of the long lifetime of rail infrastructure and rolling stock and the need to
keep investment costs for the sector at an acceptable level, radical changes
towards harmonised solutions are not possible. That is why the Commission
intends to concentrate efforts on implementing those technical specifications
that will deliver significant benefits in the short and medium term, namely
the CCS, TAF, TAP and OPE TSIs.
Lastly, it
will also be necessary for future revisions of TSIs to give a higher
consideration to the principles developed under the strategy for simplifying
the regulatory environment and to ensure the relevance, effectiveness and
proportionality of the railway legislation. For example, more use of
voluntary European standards will be considered.
The Commission
will continue to check how the legal framework for railway safety and
interoperability is implemented in practice, ensuring that all the secondary
legislation is introduced (mainly TSIs for conventional rail and common safety
methods) and the new Directives are transposed. It then intends to prepare
a Communication reviewing its policies on interoperability and the safety
of the Community railway system.