The rail freight industry has had its say during an innovation panel discussion at Innotrans. A large variety of speakers, among which were ERFA President Maciej Gładyga, ERA Executive Director Oana Gherghinescu and Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking Executive Director Giorgio Travaini. All shared their views on the path forward.
There is no shortage of rail innovation ideas. That much becomes clear when walking around the many halls at Innotrans in Berlin. Still, choices have to be made, since not everything can be tested or implemented at once.
The key principle to follow is that innovation must make running trains more economical, according to Gładyga, speaking on behalf of the rail freight industry. “Sometimes there are questions about this”, he said, “like in the case of DAC”.
The Digital Automatic Coupler remains one of the main technologies around which the rail sector is expected to innovate. However, the benefits are not always so clear. “An intermodal train moving from point A to point B without any shunting operations does not benefit from this technology” explained Gładyga.
Financial concerns
“Rail must change, but we cannot be left alone with the bill”, the ERFA president added. Widespread implementation of DAC is expected to cost many billions of euros. The rail freight industry cannot carry the burden of such high initial capital expenditures. “It is difficult to deal with the cost of investments, because the return on investment is far away”, Gładyga elaborated. The benefits are too far off to justify the short-term expenses, especially in a sector with thin profit margins.
ERFA also pointed towards the implementation of traffic management system ERTMS. It was supposed to harmonise and simplify the European rail system, but three decades on, the results are nowhere in sight. “Always seek a business case”, Gładyga said. “We hope to stop talking to each other and start talking to the clients. They want fast, easy and cheap transport.”
Views from the EU
After all speakers had their say, it was the EU representatives’ turn to respond. First to take the floor was Oana Gherghinescu, executive director at the European Agency for Railways (ERA).
Based on previous speakers’ insights, Gherghinescu concluded that there needs to be a prioritisation of needs. There is a lot on offer, but not all can be implemented. Second, there needs to be a certain maturity of innovation according to Gherghinescu. Earlier talk about a freezing of TSIs — Europe’s tool to enforce a degree of interoperability — called for a similar idea.
A Technical Specification for Interoperability (TSI) is a European standard that defines the technical and operational requirements for rail systems to ensure seamless cross-border rail traffic across the EU.
TSIs cover everything from rolling stock and infrastructure to signalling, telematics, energy systems, and accessibility.
Their primary goal is to harmonise rail systems across member states, making sure different national networks and equipment can operate together safely, efficiently, and without technical barriers. TSIs are legally binding and form a key part of the EU’s strategy to create a single European railway area.
The primary issue with frequent changes to TSIs is that it brings many imposed expenses to rail companies without significant improvements to long-term interoperability, market parties have argued.
The ERA head believes that TSI freezing does not mean stopping innovation. Rather, “it means finding the right cycles for the introduction of innovation”, she commented. Ten years, according to her, is the right life cycle to allow for an adequate return on investment.
Lastly, Gherghinescu argued for a new approach to deployment: no deployment without discussion and debate. She wants the involvement of all innovation stakeholders, including private investors. Early alignment on key issues is important, with ERTMS and communication system FRMCS being cases in point, according to Gherghinescu. In those situations, implementation divergences prevented real cross-border interoperability, despite that being the ultimate goal.
Giorgio Travaini, executive director at Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, concluded the session by saying one should indeed pursue a client-oriented approach. Moreover, Travaini argued that there should be additional support for pre-deployment activities, such as testing, in order to bridge the gap between innovation and practical implementation.