A joint ambition for driving cost-effectiveness of EU rail

Very open, concrete and constructive discussions yesterday at the "Cutting cost in rail" high level event co-organised by the Danish Ministry for Transport, the Danish NSA Trafikstyrelsen, ERA, the European Commission and Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking.

Many thanks to the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU 2025 for hosting this important event and for the excellent cooperation. Key stakeholders from across Europe exchanged views and proposals on how to make rail transport more cost-efficient and unlock its potential. 

Key takeaways from the intense discussions:

• Cleaning up the remaining technical and operational national rules. Looking at where and why cross-border obstacles persist; understanding where they hurt most.
• Making sure that our technical specifications become more and more mature, stable, easy to understand and to apply. Beyond the huge challenge, turning the deployment of the new radio communication system (FRMCS) into the opportunity of a virtuous cycle from innovation to the market.
• Driving an industrial approach to ERTMS, with fully harmonised engineering solutions, economies of scale and mass production, leaving little room for cumbersome compatibility checks.
• Putting forward coordinated and ambitious deployment strategies for ERTMS in order to support proper planning for industrial capacity in Europe. Cross-border investments with strong business cases fully backed up by compatible ERTMS, with no legacy systems behind, can trigger a positive domino effect across the rest of the networks.
• Streamlining administrative processes for vehicle authorisation, certification, and track-side approval through a hands-on process to identify evidence-based improvements.
• Enabling cost-effective rolling stock authorisation for wider areas of use in order to increase the return on investment and the potential for a strong second-hand market for rolling stock in the EU.

Important to remind that rail is about people: sustainable competency in the railway sector is essential. 

This open forum of constructive dialogue is for us the start of an important and courageous journey, requiring joint efforts and concrete actions to make progress happen.

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.