The aim of EU legislative regulations in the technical area of transport is to facilitate and improve competitiveness in railway traffic and create a balance between transport modes. Consequently, these regulations focus on boosting and improving railway traffic, implicitly generating the railway system and private sector development. Therefore, the intero-perability directives have been elaborated to enable railway traffic on any line of the European railway traffic. However, currently, competitiveness is blocked by the gaps between EU member states concerning rolling stock, technology, signalling systems, safety norms, braking systems etc. “Interoperability is the capacity a railway system has to enable the completely safe and smooth traffic of the trains that reach the necessary performance level on the respective lines. This capacity depends on all regulatory, technical or operational conditions that need to be applied in order to meet all vital requirements”, declared Andreas Bikowski, representative BD AG, during a panel session held by OTIF in Skopje (Republic of Macedonia) in April 2010.
Therefore, the Technical Interoperability Specifications (TSIs) on locomotives and passenger rolling stock establish the implementation conditions and procedures that could make possible uninterrupted traffic across the entire EU. But the TSIs don’t impose the utilisation of specific technologies or technical solutions, except for the situations when these elements are strictly necessary to interoperability on the Trans-European network.
The extension of the TSI scope is also important for the rolling stock since the rolling stock placing in service certification in any member state is valid both for the TEN-T and non-TEN-T. Moreover, it is necessary to define new sub-categories for the different types of rolling stock in order to ensure the development of passenger traffic on the expanded network.
For locomotives and passenger carriages, the TSIs approach aspects such as structure, equipment command and control systems, braking systems, coupling and rolling mechanisms, suspensions, doors, facilities for people with reduced mobility, safety instruments etc. In the case of locomotives, the TSIs have to consider cross-acceptance activities.
Expectations in the railway industry raise with the introduction of the TSIs. Equipping rolling stock with the systems required by the TSIs will boost the activity of the private companies which supply these mechanisms, thus encouraging the specific market to develop innovating projects. The Technical Specifications for Interoperability have a great influence on the development of future rolling stock generations by regulating the extension of technical specifications for locomotives, passenger carriages and train units.
The TSIs impact not only on technical specifications; their implementation concerns many companies and organisations with different levels of experience. The business segment will also include the participation of medium-sized companies that have not had the opportunity to contribute to the development of vehicles until now.
The TSIs on locomotives and passenger rolling stock for conventional railway transport describe the rolling stock subsystems and functions, essential requirements, the characteristics of the rolling stock subsystem, as well as the functional and technical specifications of this subsystem, from components and mechanical structure, operation documents and rolling stock maintenance, as well as environment conditions.
The TSIs apply to all units that were placed into service after the application of the TSIs. However, any railway vehicle manufactured after the application of the new rules should be TSI compliant. “Because of the big number of projects and contracts initiated before the implementation, we will still have conventional non-TSI compliant rolling stock”, shows the Commission’s draft decision for CR STI (March 2010).
by Pamela Luică
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