The 2022-2024 programming period involves the full-fledged performance of the Agency’s tasks as EU-wide authority for safety certification, vehicle authorisation and ERTMS trackside approval, along with other tasks in the field of railway safety and interoperability as foreseen in the Technical Pillar of the Fourth Railway Package.
Our mission statement
Moving Europe towards
a sustainable and safe railway
system without frontier.
Our Values
Structure of the
multi-annual
programme 2022-2024
The structure of Agency’s multi-annual activities, implements the intervention logic, focusing on desired outcome and impacts.
Achieving more and better
with the same
The Agency will pay increasing attention to monitoring and increasing the efficiency and performance of its activities in order to make best use of its resources.
Goals
- To optimize budget spending of the Agency
- To optimize time consumption of the Agency’s processes and staff
- To further implement the intervention logic
- To better assess and measure the performance of the Agency
Financial resources
Breakdown and trend
€2020, 2021 - actual (payment, as in EU Budget); 2022-2024 - planned (as in SPD)
Expenditure split by titles
Figures refer to commitment appropriations
2020, 2021 - actual (payment, as in EU Budget); 2022-2024 - planned (as in SPD)
Key Performance
Indicators 2022
The Agency has set a number of KPI’s, to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the work programme, including limiting the staff turnover at less than 5%.
Strategy for achieving efficiency gains
The Agency is committed to continuously improve its functioning, streamline its processes, optimise the engagement of its staff, and allow for the reallocation of resources to the most efficient level.
The Agency has already implemented various efficiency measures in 2021, including:
Digitalisation
-
The Agency has achieved a very high degree of digitalisation, eliminating paper-processes and bringing
forward online solutions, such as:
- E-procurement
- E-invoicing
- Electronic travel booking
Cooperation
-
The Agency has continuously cooperated with the EUAN network, as well as the European Commission to
increase its efficiency:
- EUAN: best practices and lessons learnt, shared services
- EU Commission (DG DIGIT, DG BUDGET): implementation of digital EU tools and Software
- Ongoing discussion to potentially reuse and adapt the aviation safety Information sharing platform “ECCAIRS2” for the railway ISS, subject to a separate budget request.
Prioritisation
- The Agency has also continued its prioritisation exercise for resource allocations.
The Agency will present a fully-fledged strategy for achieving efficiency gain by the end of the year, with a clearly identified action plan and milestones. In 2021, the Agency has already carried out a benchmarking exercise, as well as a survey and internal workshops to identify recommendations in the field of efficiency.
The strategy will highlight the efficiency gains and resource savings initiatives, including but not limited to:
The activities
planned for 2022-2024
Strategic Statement 1
There will no longer be any technical and operational barriers to the free movement of people and goods by rail, assets can be reused throughout Europe.
By 2022, the Agency will have consolidated its position as European authority for rail, sustaining an excellent reputation both in technical terms, but also in terms of customer service. From the perspective of its position of authority for delivering vehicle authorisations and ERTMS trackside approvals, the Agency will continue in the period 2022-2024 to drive further the harmonisation towards the Single European Rail Area, in terms of technical and operational interoperability. A section of the harmonisation will be implemented through the System Pillar. The stability of the TSIs, together with a successful...
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Increase the understanding of the barriers preventing the ERTMS deployment across European Rail Network
- Deliver the TSI package 2022
- Finalisation of the cleaning up of the national rules of vehicles and assessment of National Rules for fixed installations
- Capitalize on the lessons learnt with National Safety rules and NSA monitoring in all MS
- Set up the baseline for NoBos monitoring and capture early best practices/lessons learnt
Strategic Statement 2
Rail will become the backbone that supports an environmentally sustainable multimodal transport system and will be favoured as a transport mode by the new generations.
Strategic Statement 3
Rail traffic will become seamless and MaaS (Mobility as a Service) and LaaS (Logistic as a Service) will be ensured, including multi-leg ticketing.
The Agency has started to play an important role in promoting further the transformation of the European transport system towards emission-free, sustainable transport modes, which will be based on a multi-modal integration (MaaS and LaaS). By 2022, the Agency will have provided substantial input to the Green Deal deliverables and will have played a key role for driving the data and digitalisation agenda for railways, based on the linked data pilots. This is particularly relevant in a multi-modal context.
For the period 2022-2024, the Agency will continue to play a key role in ensuring the right framework for the data and information exchange related to assets and services (including ticketing data) is put in place, based on linked data and universal data identifiers. This will ensure a seamless exchange of data with other modes of transport, thus allowing the customers to benefit from a comprehensive logistics chain or the mobility-as-a-service, respectively. In addition, the Agency will continue to deliver support and assistance to the EC for the Green Deal, as well as...
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Publish at least one annual topic report on the green Agenda
- Publish the Interoperability Progress report for TAF/TAP TSI
- Extension of TAP access to ticket vendors (information on timetable, tariff, and journey in real-time)
- Messages on train composition, train running, and consignment/ wagon tracking will be made available to not only railway undertakings but also to transporters sending goods by train
- Harmonisation of the rules for the codification system used for combined transport
Strategic Statement 4
Rail will be an increasingly safe and secure mode of transport for its users and workers.
The Agency will continue to work for improving operational safety and overall operational performance of the railway system through the management of major railway operational risks, as well as through positive safety culture, integration of human and organisational factors and the commitment to a continuous learning environment.
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Reinforce the maturity of operators (i.e. IM, RU, ECM) in the implementation of their management systems
- Reinforce the maturity of the different legal control levels in adequately fulfilling their activities (i.e. MS, NSA, CSM AsBo, ECM certif. bodies, NoBo (DeBo), accreditation/recognition, NIBs)
- Actively promote the sharing of safety related data for proper decision-taking at all levels in the railway system
Strategic Statement 5
Rail will be resilient and agile in responding to emergency situations.
Based on the experience gained during the post-Covid crisis, the Agency has the ambition to strengthen its role as facilitator at the level of the rail sector, but also from a multi-modal perspective. The ultimate purpose is that when events cause significant perturbations impacting cross border rail operations there is a harmonised response across transport modes and that the response reduces the impact on the cross-border operations and manages to restore normal operations as soon as possible the Agency could deliver support in building a contingency handbook, including a common definition of...
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Strategic Statement 6
Rail will become increasingly economically competitive as a mode and as a sector.
The Agency will endeavour to make sure that the rules and system specifications are smart, proportionate and contribute to the competitiveness of the industry. It will also make sure that the SSC and VA processes are cost and time saving for railway undertakings, fostering the entrance of new operators in the market.
As presented in previous strategic statements, the agency aims at evaluating the economic impact of the vehicle authorisation and issuing of single safety certificate processes on the railway sector, the impact of the TSIs as a package, of market opening and competition...
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Increase evidence and knowledge to support impact and outcome-based decision making
Strategic Statement 7
The EU will become the global reference for rail and ERA authorisations will be globally recognised.
The Agency will continue in strengthening international cooperation in rail by following the EC international relations agenda, continue its collaboration with European and international standardization organizations and deploy “ERA academy”, its dissemination and training service. Furthermore, the Agency will strive to make EU authorisations internationally recognized and will focus on the EC priorities in terms of technical and geographical areas, and will also provide the requested analyses and support. If grant is extended beyond 2022, the Agency will continue the IPA and/or the EUMed Rail projects.
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Delivery of EUMedRail conferences
- Delivery of IPA conferences
- Delivery of additional EU conferences
Strategic Statement 8
The Agency will ensure an effective and efficient governance of its portfolio of activities in order to offer the best value for money to citizens and business in the EU
The Agency will make sure: that its portfolio of activities is planned in a sound manner, in line with its long term strategy and the intervention logic model; that the outcomes and impacts of the its work are always at the core of its decisions; that there is a clear link between the outcomes/impacts and the Agency’s projects and services, including their outputs; that the delivery, monitoring and reporting of the Agency’s projects and services are coordinated in the spirit of efficiency and performance and that they are properly communicated to the public.
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Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- In depth analysis on the internal roles and responsibilities to ensure the MT and MB can focus on important decisions, including PPS framework
- Increase of the qualification of Programme, projects and service managers
- Efficiency strategy published, and its action plan being implemented
- Design an open survey on the Agency website to collect feedback, in parallel study the feasibility of using social media to measure the Agency reputation and stakeholder’s satisfaction via sentiment analysis.
- Effective Data Governance in place with Reference Data appropriation
Strategic Statement 9
The Agency will ensure a performant working environment, based on high quality motivated resources and a collaborative behaviour
This includes the multi-annual work related to the human resources strategy, the ICT strategy, the building facilities, the management of Agency’s financial resources and procurements and internal communication. Additional initiatives such as the Better Together at ERA, which aims at implementing the matrix “one agency” approach, will also contribute to this strategic statement.
Progress Towards Outcome in 2022
- Driving a cultural change
- Clarify the concept of digital transformation, defining the scope and the impact on the Agency’s activities. Baselining
- Setting the strategic landscape for HR, Registers, IT, etc.
- Appropriate supply of working tools, such as Sysper II, ABAC/SUMMA, New SharePoint environment, and deployment of cloud-based services
- Facilitating the network compatibility checks done by the RUs by mean of applications based on RINF Register accessible as Linked Data
- Competency management framework:
- Self-assessment for the PAD action plan, testing the process for future development
- Fully deployed in IMS
- Align staff IT literacy with new environments (e.g. Power BI, planner, PowerApps, etc.)
Women in transport
The Agency is participating to the EU “Platform for change” to address gender equality in transport. The Agency further actively supports initiatives to increase the attractiveness of the railway sector for women, and promotes gender diversity.
Environment Management
The Agency’s aim is to follow and to promote good sustainability practice, to reduce the environmental impacts of its activities and to help its stakeholders to do the same. The Agency’s principles are implemented in different goals:
- Green building (E.G. The Agency is considering a building green certification for its new building project - Certification HQE - “Haute Qualité Environnementale”).
- Climate protection
- Waste reduction and recycling
- Sustainable resource management
- Environmental preferable purchasing (E.G. The Agency is considering procurement for green electricity)
- Transportation
Geographical Balance
The Agency welcomes diversity in nationalities and aims to embrace within the organisation employees all over Europe in the next years.
Supporting the European
Commission Agenda
Through its mission and actions, the Agency is committed to contribute to the EC Political guidelines:
- A European Green Deal with the Fit for 55 package
- An economy that works for people
- A Europe fit for the digital age
- A stronger Europe in the world
The Agency will support the EC agenda to ensure sustainable, safe, affordable and accessible transport and to strengthen rail’s role in the transport mix, in line with its mission and mandate.
