Revision of the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA)

Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. (FS) - website: https://www.fsitaliane.it/en.html hereby submits its contribution to the ERA Mandate Revision EC Public Consultation. Please note that FS has participated in the related Targeted Consultation, submitting both our formal responses and the attached FS Italiane Comment Paper.

Iarnród Éireann welcomes the opportunity to submit observations on Revision of the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). A subsidiary of Córas Iompair Éireann, Iarnród Éireann provides passenger and freight rail services as well as operating Rosslare Europort. Iarnród Éireann welcomes the opportunity to provide observations.

While UIP co-signs and supports all the elements contained in the attached "Sector input paper for ERA Regulation Call for Evidence", we would like to add the following remarks, in the name of UIP alone: The revision of ERAs mandate, together with the implementation of the framework for common safety methods ('CSM ASLP) offer concrete opportunities to strengthen the coordinating role of ERA in order to accelerate…

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) is pleased to submit the attached statement in response to the European Commissions consultation on the revision of the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).

The European Passengers' Federation (EPF) strongly supports ERA's work, whose mission is "Moving Europe towards a sustainable and safe railway system without frontiers". Since its establishment in 2004, ERA has made significant progress in strengthening rail safety and interoperability across the EU, and its technical achievements are widely recognised.

The European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) is delighted to share its position on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2016/796 on the European Union's Agency for Railways. You will find attached a sector input paper co-signed by ALE, CER, EIM, ERFA, FEDECRAIL, NB-Rail, UIP, UIRR, UITP, UNIFE.

The Norwegian Railway union, who organizes all kind of railway workers, without drivers fully support the ETF statement regarding the ERA mandate. We like to highlight what ETF mention about the concern of removing national rules and the lack of binding rules and that the responsibility to follow the TSIs is left to the companies without any conclusion of what is safe enough.

From the perspective of the Latvian railway sector, the main concerns regarding ERA activities relate to high certification costs and lengthy procedures for vehicle authorisations and single safety certificates. The processes are often time-consuming and difficult to predict, creating a significant administrative and financial burden for undertakings.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on the mandate of the Agency. I very much appreciate the cooperation and the opportunity to improve things. I set out the key drivers that need to be addressed and improved. These initiatives have already been addressed through official or other channels. For each initiative, we are ready to work more closely together.

Filed in Czech · English published by the European Commission

LO Norway acknowledges that equipping European railways for better interoperability and facilitating greater mobility across borders is a good intention. We also support high ambitions for railway safety, as well as increasing the market share of the sustainable transport that railways provide.

UNIFE - The European Rail Industry Association - welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the proposed revision of the ERA Regulation (EU) 2016/796. Attached you will find a common input paper by ALE, CER, EIM, ERFA, FEDECRAIL, NB-RAIL, UIP, UIRR, UITP and UNIFE, proposing amendments to the ERA regulation to clarify the mandate of ERA and importantly areas where sufficient resources and expertise are required.

Europe is facing challenges of strategic autonomy, resilience, competitiveness and decarbonisation. In response to these challenges, Europe on Rail recommends an upgraded mandate for the European Union Agency for Railways.

Fedecrail a member of the Group of Representative Bodies, representing heritage operators, welcomes the commission review of the ERA mandate and the call for evidence. We have added our name to the GRB joint response, which we believe is a fair and reasonable set of proposals for this review for the modern railway.

In the opinion of the Pro Kolej Foundation, the proposed extension of the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways, while having positive effects, may also have a negative impact on the flexibility and competitiveness of the railway system.

EIM, as the association of European rail infrastructure managers, welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the important role of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) in the context of the ongoing call for evidence on revising Regulation (EU) 2016/796.

The Federal Chamber of Labour welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the future mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). The Federal Chamber of Labour is the statutory body representing the interests of more than 3.8 million employees in Austria. It is registered in the EU Transparency Register under the number 23869471911-54.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

CER welcomes the opportunity to share the view of its members and to provide input to the European Commission before the presentation of the revised regulation. As a member of the Group of Representative Bodies (GRB), CER also signed the Joint Sector Position on the Revision.

The Railway Administration very much welcomes the opportunity to communicate its views on streamlining the functioning of the European Railway Agency (ERA) to the European Commission as part of the process of revising Regulation 796/2016 and as part of the consultation on the revision of the ERA mandate.

Filed in Czech · English published by the European Commission

The ERA is a key contributor to a sustainable, safe European transport system without frontiers. It issues single safety certificates to railway undertakings, vehicle authorisations and ERTMS track-side equipment approval.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

AERRL and ALLRAIL support the European Commissions initiative to revise Regulation (EU) 2016/796 on the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). This revision represents a key opportunity to further strengthen the Single European Railway Area, accelerate market opening, and enhance the competitiveness, sustainability and innovation capacity of the European rail sector.

AERRL and ALLRAIL support the European Commissions initiative to revise Regulation (EU) 2016/796 on the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). This revision represents a key opportunity to further strengthen the Single European Railway Area, accelerate market opening, and enhance the competitiveness, sustainability and innovation capacity of the European rail sector.

The Spanish Railway Industry Association (Mafex), representing 118 companies and accounting for 83 % of SPAINS railway exports, welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the revision of the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).

Filed in Spanish · English published by the European Commission

See also attached file. 1. Complexity of the authorisation process and rules : difficulty in identifying conditions of authorization when an update is applied on CCS, RS or software. 2. When a topic is blocking and additional inputs have to be provided, it is not always easy to understand the different options, their advantages and drawbacks.

ÖBB expressly supports the expanded role of ERA as part of the 4th Railway Package. However, experience has shown that the objectives pursued have not yet been fully achieved. This is primarily due to factors other than the legal framework of ERA Regulation (EU) 2016/796 itself.

The European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the future mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). The ETF is a pan-European trade union organisation which embraces transport trade unions from the European Union, the European Economic Area and Central and Eastern European countries.

The European Commission aims to simplify rail vehicle authorisation (VA) to cut costs, reduce burdens on applicants, Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs), and Authorising Entities (AEs), accelerate projects and increase competitivenessan approach supported by UNIFE and ACRI.

1. The administrative complexity of the system The current overall architecture of the European railway system shows a high level of administrative complexity. Key processes, in particular vehicle authorisation and safety assessment, are characterised by a combination of high complexity, excessive financial costs, long deadlines and low predictability of the outcome.

Filed in Slovak · English published by the European Commission

We need a true European one-stop shop for railway regulation, with real authority above national entities. Certification must become genuinely European: one approval, valid everywhere, without local reinterpretations, national add-ons, or infrastructure-manager-specific hurdles.

NSA SE supports initiatives aimed at streamlining vehicle authorisation and safety certification processes, as authorisation procedures remain complex and resource-intensive. This is particularly important in view of the forthcoming large-scale deployment of FRMCS and Digital Automatic Couplers.

From the perspective of organisations directly involved in rolling stock design, manufacturing, system integration and certification support, the revision of ERAs mandate is a necessary and welcome step. In recent years, the practical implementation of vehicle authorisation and safety certification processes has too often been affected by diverging national interpretations, additional local requirements and…

The 4th The railway package is one of the worst and legally inadequate systems in post-war European history, especially in the freight wagon sector. ERA is structurally and organisationally overwhelmed by the tasks entrusted to it. Instead of maintaining and further developing systems such as UIC in the freight wagon sector that work well and have proved their worth for decades, they are gradually being replaced.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

We fully support evaluating ERAs role in the European railway market. In our opinion, ERA should have one objective: Simplify railway operations and homologate new/refurbished vehicles. For the past ten years, it has become increasingly difficult to operate international trains and to homologate vehicles.

The actual process for authorisation of freght wagons is very expensive and time consuming, hampering new designs due these factors. The high standardisation of freght wagons is not enough considered in the process and thus after completing a full TSI-Wag certification checked by NoBos and Risk Analysis by AsBo a mostly burocratic checking process last 5 months.