Increasing rail safety maturity and safety performance in Europe through a better understanding of the situation on the ground

I am honoured to open the fourth edition of the European Rail Safety Days, here in the beautiful city of Kraków. This event is more than a conference - it is a collective commitment to making railways safer across Europe for the passengers and for the railway workers. Evidence-based safety must be our overriding priority, not just in documents and strategies, but in the decisions, we make every day - from design and planning to operations and maintenance. 

My ambition is to drive ERA to be a key contributor to achieve:

• Safer railway operations and a safer working environment in rail in the EU
• Shifting the focus from a re-active mode to a pro-active one; learning from occurrences and precursors in order to prevent accidents and incidents
• Making best and safest use of technology: ERTMS must be seen not only as the tool for capacity and efficiency, but as a very strong driver of safety across the EU. Let us all go for full speed implementation of this system
• Working on proposing common safety methods across Europe, which are grounded on the good understanding of our national and organisational realities, and which are easy to understand and apply
• Accompanying regulation and monitoring with adapted capacity building programmes to address the needs on the ground and raise continued awareness on the importance of safety.

This article was published as part of the On Track with the Director page, a personal window into the thoughts, insights, and takeaways of Oana Gherghinescu, Executive Director of ERA.