EUROPE: Combined transport assocation UIRR has published an updated position paper on the EU’s forthcoming Rail Infrastructure Capacity Management Regulation.
This builds on its 2023 position paper, and reflects ongoing trialogue discussions to reach the final compromise to will turn the European Commission’s proposal into EU law.
On October 2 UIRR said:
- the proposed European Railway Platform bringing together railway undertakings, authorised applicants and terminal managers as well as their associations should be defined as the advisory body to the workings of the European Network of Infrastructure Managers. The ERP should function transparently, be open to every qualifying participant and any charges for participation should reflect the reasonable costs of its administration;
- a minimum capacity for rail freight traffic should be required from railway infrastructure managers when co-ordinating among themselves the diversionary routings avoiding sections of line impacted by engineering works. This should reflect the need to deter modal shift from rail to other modes;
- the time limit for train path change notifications sent by infrastructure managers to operators and authorised applicants should be set at least six months prior to the train run, and should cover both cancellation and rerouting notifications;
- rail infrastructure managers’ penalty payments for altering or cancelling train paths should not be capped, in order to provide a stronger disincentive preventing last-minute changes;
- compensation payments for diversionary routes of more than 50 km should be mandated, to cover the operating costs of freight trains including track access charges, traction energy costs, locomotive and driver costs, wagon rental fees and the disruptions caused to terminals;
- the scope of strategic guidance and the methodology of socio-economic and environmental cost-benefit analysis used for capacity allocation decisions should be set out, explicitly listing the types of unique instructions that a member state government can issue.
