Speaker:
Ian Conlon | Head of Unit, System Pillar, Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking
Abstract:
The railways have traditionally approached systems architecture following a national – even regional – technical approach, leading to a heterogeneous picture at European level. National markets for rail infrastructure and vehicles continue to exist in a way that has been overcome in other modes of transport or sectors. The problem with this is that innovations and changes to the system are very difficult and costly to achieve. Ultimately this undermines the performance and competitiveness of rail, including with its ability to easily interface with other complementary non-rail systems.
The purpose of the System Pillar is to improve the European railway system to offer better services for the European citizen, passengers and freight through, inter alia:
• Cost efficiency for integration
• Migration and deployment,
• Cost efficiency for maintenance and evolution of the system
• Quicker roll-out of innovations
• Market accessibility (for equipment and service provision)
• Increase overall performance and agility of the railway including time, reliability and safety towards the customer through faster deployment of key new technologies
• Improved train service delivery across the European Union
• Facilitate rail as integral part of the mobility services across the European Union
• Manage diverse rail legacy, bringing interoperability and ease the migration
• Sound, qualified and reliable supply chain.
As set out in the SBA , EU-RAIL will develop in its System Pillar a system view that reflects the needs of the rail operating community, Infrastructure Managers, rail manufacturing industry, Member States and other rail private and public stakeholders, including bodies representing customers, such as passengers, freight forwarders, and staff, as well as and relevant actors outside the traditional rail sector. This will be reflected in the System Pillar governance, through the System Pillar Steering Group.
The ‘system view’ shall encompass, as defined in Article 86 of the Single Basic Act:
a) the development of the operational concept and system architecture, including the definition of the services, functional blocks, and interfaces, which form the basis of rail system operations;
b) the development of associated specifications including interfaces, functional requirement specifications and system requirement specifications to feed into Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) established pursuant to Directive (EU) 2016/797 of the European Parliament and of the Council or standardisation processes to lead to higher levels of digitalisation and automation;
c) ensuring the system is maintained, error-corrected and able to adapt over time and ensure migration considerations from current architectures;
d) ensuring that the necessary interfaces with other modes, as well as with metro and trams or light rail systems, are assessed and demonstrated, in particular for freight and passenger flows.
A successful System Pillar will:
• Make the most efficient use of scarce resources (EU and Member States, rail sector, both financial and human capital), coordinating and consolidating initiatives under one umbrella.
• Align public and private EU Research and Innovation initiatives with a long-term operational concept and system architecture, supporting interoperability, and to the legal and regulatory framework, to ensure a strategic plan for an overall harmonised approach.