EU Regulation 445 on a system of certification of entities in charge of maintenance for freight wagons became effective in May 2011.
Taking into account the wide variety of design and maintenance methods, this system of maintenance should be a process-oriented system. The assessment by a certification body of an application for an ECM certificate is an assessment of the applicant’s ability to manage maintenance activities and to deliver the operational functions of maintenance either by itself or through contracts with other bodies, such as maintenance workshops, charged with delivering these functions or parts of these functions. An ECM certificate shall be valid for a period up to 5 years. Following contractual arrangements, a railway operator may request information for operational purposes on the maintenance of a freight wagon. The entity in charge of the maintenance of the freight wagon shall respond to such requests either directly or through other contracting parties.
Under the Regulation, the organization (entity in charge of maintenance) has to dispose of procedures to establish, identify, supply, register and keep available the right equipments which permit it to deliver maintenance services in conformity with the orders and other applicable specifications. Therefore, the safe maintenance and ergo-nomy has to be safely ensured, including user interfaces and information systems or diagnosis equipments.
With their safety management system, railway freight transport operators or infrastructure managers have to ensure the control of all risks related to its activity, including the use of such wagons. To this end, a railway undertaking should rely on contractual arrangements involving entities in charge of maintenance for all wagons it operates. This could be a contract between the railway undertaking and the entity in charge of maintenance or a chain of contracts involving other parties, such as the keeper, the Regulation shows.
In turn, without breaching the responsibility of railway operators and infrastructure managers, the entity in charge of maintenance has to make sure, with the help of a maintenance system, that freight wagons are in good operating conditions.
Under the Regulation, the maintenance system has four functions. Thus, the management function which supervises and coordinate maintenance functions. The maintenance development function, in charge with managing the documents which refer to maintenance, including configuration management, based on design and operating data and on gained experience. Fleet maintenance function managing the putting off service of the vehicle for maintenance and operation resumption. The fourth function is the actual maintenance including technical maintenance for a freight wagons or part of it, including the supply of the documents necessary for putting the vehicles back in service.
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