Mr Fitch has been Head of Rail Safety and Interoperability Unit in the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport in the European Commission since 2016 and was previously responsible in DG MOVE for the transport research policy. Prior to that, Mr Fitch was Deputy Head of Cabinet of Siim Kallas, Vice-President and Commissioner for Transport where he was responsible for land transport, security and competition/state aids. He was also the coordinator of the 2011 White Paper of the Future of Transport. Mr Fitch studied mathematics and law at Cambridge, was a lawyer at Herbert Smith and then moved on to the UK civil service in 1993. He joined the European Commission's Legal Service in 1999. Before joining the cabinet of Mr. Kallas in 2004, he was a Member of Cabinet of Vice-President Kinnock.

Introduction to the third day of the conference - Implementation and Outlook

ERTMS implementation needs to be accelerated. This requires a common effort. All stakeholders need to contribute to it within regulation, planning, ordering, production, certification, authorisation, maintenance, and operations. As ERTMS is an enabler for higher quality rail services it needs to evolve. Let's discuss the most promising improvements of ERTMS and how to make them happen.