The European Commission has adopted a regulation that establishes the new Technical Specification for Interoperability for telematics (TSI TEL) and repeals TSI TAF and TSI TAP. Importantly, the new TSI contains new obligations for data sharing and establishes rights to access and use said data.
The Commission adopted the regulation on 6 February. It will enter into force on 2 March. The newly established TSI TEL replaces the old separate telematics TSIs for freight and passenger rail.
In summary, TSI TEL introduces:
- Business-to-business obligations to share data, together with rights to access and use data
- A harmonised data format based on a common ontology (the ERA Ontology)
- Requirements on data quality, cybersecurity and the safe use of data for railway operations
- The deployment of European “one-stop shops” for digital capacity and traffic management
- The designation of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) as system authority for the digitalisation of rail communications, with a clear compliance framework.
The adopted regulation applies to telematics applications for both freight and passenger services, including capacity management, train preparation, traffic management and management of freight wagons and their load. In the case of passenger rail, it additionally applies to ticketing and travel information. It only applies to rail transport services operating within the EU (and therefore not when operating to or from third countries).
What are the data sharing obligations?
In terms of data sharing, the regulation obliges “telematics stakeholders” that are involved in the same rail transport services in the abovementioned processes to grant each other access to data necessary to carry out those processes. If that sounds complex, the idea is simple: companies that work together need to give each other the data needed to do so. Which data that is exactly, the Commission has specified in the annex of the regulation.
Additionally, infrastructure managers (IMs) or operators of rail freight service facilities (e.g. terminals, marshalling yards, maintenance facilities, storage sidings) are obliged to provide telematics stakeholders access to working timetable data, train traffic data, train composition data and historical records via a common EU web UI.
Upon request of an EU body or a public sector body, telematics stakeholders are also required to grant direct access to data in order to monitor the establishment of the Single European Railway Area or TEN-T, as well as the development of interoperability, safety and auditing the flow of freight or passengers in the EU.
One ‘data language’
All this data is then also supposed to be exchanged in a standardised format based on the ERA Ontology.
When sharing data, it will be mandatory for stakeholders to do so through APIs or web UIs. These could be joint EU applications, a “one-stop shop” which will be mandatory for IMs to use for multi-network capacity management, train preparation and traffic management processes.
In short, the TSI supports end-to-end digital capacity and traffic management and strengthens intermodal integration, according to the European Commission. It hopes to do so by enhancing the digital connection of multimodal freight terminals to the hinterland, extended digital tracking and tracing functions for rail freight services, support for paperless freight transport, including the use of the electronic consignment note (eCN) in line with the eFTI Regulation.