Being compatible throughout Europe, ETCS provides the European Union with a unique opportunity to create a seamless railway system, where trains may run from Barcelona to Warsaw without facing technical problems related to signalling.
The safety system therefore brings considerable benefits in addition to interoperability, as increased capacity on existing lines and a greater ability to respond to growing transport demands: as a continuous communication-based signalling system, ETCS reduces the headway between trains enabling up to 40% more capacity on currently existing infrastructure. ETCS brings higher speeds, higher reliability rates, lower production costs, reduced maintenance costs and simplifies the approval process in Europe and greatly reduced certification costs traditionally associated with the introduction of new systems.
Belgium and the Netherlands are two countries with a long-standing railway tradition, but which also invested massively to develop a modern high-speed rail network in recent years. In both countries, high speed has by definition a European dimension, as lines connect Amsterdam and Brussels to London, Paris or Cologne. It also comes with a specific challenge – cross-border traffic – in which ETCS can play a major role. It therefore does not come as a surprise that Belgium and the Netherlands were the first ones to achieve a high-speed ETCS Level 2 cross-border connection in revenue service since the end of 2009.
Belgium is a country which invested massively in the past few years to upgrade its railway network. It subsequently became the first European country to have a complete network of high-speed lines from border to border in commercial service, with links to the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Infrabel, the Belgian railway infrastructure manager, has developed a Masterplan to implement the ETCS across Belgium’s entire railway network by 2022 and national train operating company, SNCB/NMBS, plans to migrate their fleet to ETCS standards.
Infrabel in figures:
• 3.595 km railway lines
• 1.848 level crossings
• 1 Traffic Control and 177 signalling boxes
• 85% of the network is electrified
• 10.466 signals
• 4.450 train paths each day
• 12.609 civil engineering works
Belgium is a hub in a rapidly expanding European high-speed passenger network.
The Belgian railway network serves as an important hub connecting the ports of Antwerp, Ghent and Zeebrugge with hinterland industrial EU regions and plays a pivotal role in the EU high-speed rail system.
ETCS Master Plan
The strategy of progressively equipping the Belgian infrastructure with ETCS until 2022 is ambitious. The strategy, approved by the Government, was estimated at EUR 2,4 billion of the total cost for the infrastructure manager. Its financing was conceived on the basis of the annual state funding and within the framework of the European subsidies and corridor C.
According to the Infrabel data, four major successive deadlines have been set out for the implementation of the ETCS Master Plan as follows:
• Phase 1 – current situation: Expediting implementation of Transmission Balise Locomotive Driving aid system TBL1+ and ETCS
• Phase 2 – 2015-2022: End of the TBL1+ programme (2015) and realization of ETCS (2022)
• Phase 3 – 2025: Making ETCS the technical standard for all operators travelling on the Belgian network
• Phase 4 – 2030-2035: Convergence towards a homogeneous version of ETCS – level 2 (this phase is to be confirmed)
This ETCS Master Plan is a joint collaborative effort between Infrabel and the railway operator that aims for maximal safety for the train operation, the best ergonomics for train drivers, higher reliability of the signalling system, increased network capacity and full interoperability. The ETCS Master Plan provides for a substantial increase in the safety of the whole of the Belgian railway network.
In 2014 Infrabel had the longest single stretch in Europe, no less than 160 kilometres in length, equipped with ETCS. This is the main line between Namur and the Luxembourg border, also known as the “Athus-Meuse” freight route. This means that Infrabel is not only increasing the safety of the rail network, but also reinforcing its position as one of the leaders in Europe in terms of ETCS.
Infrabel CEO Luc Lallemand says that 99.9% of Infrabel’s network will be covered by TBL1+ by the end of 2016, and while the technology is not ETCS, TBL1+ hardware is compatible with ETCS Level 1 following a straightforward software upgrade procedure.
These network-wide upgrade procedures began after 2015 to fulfil the objective of rolling out a combination of ETCS levels 1 and 2, and limited supervision on the entire network by 2022. ETCS Level 1 version 2.3.0d, which is described by Infrabel as the most stable proven product currently available on the market, will be installed on 60% of the network, while the remaining 40% will be covered by ETCS Level 2 version 2.3.0d.
Infrastructure manager Infrabel has officially signed the EUR 510m contract with Siemens Mobility and Cofely-Fabricom for installation of ETCS Level 2 on more than 2,200 track-km, together with the introduction of interlocking across the network. According to Siemens, the work is due to be completed by the end of 2025.
The Level 2 contract is the final implementation stage of the ETCS Masterplan prepared by Infrabel and SNCB. According to the infrastructure manager, 938 km of track has already been equipped with ETCS, accounting for about 14% of the core network. Infrabel anticipates that ETCS will be rolled out across the whole network by the end of 2022 ‘offering Belgium one of the safest networks in Europe’.
With the rollout of new signalling systems, Infrabel and the railway operators, particularly SNCB, hope to reduce incident risks to an absolute minimum. In the medium term, a large section of the Belgian railway network is now covered by an automatic braking system.
by Elena Ilie
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