Program

The presentation deals with prospects of railway freight transport after 2021 from the carrier’s perspective. In the initial part, previous support of the so called Railway packages of the European Union is summarized with emphasis on freight transport. Further, principal terms for future development are introduced and also the European Green Deal issue in light of potential benefits and risks for rail freight transportation is mentioned.

UNIFE is and has always been a strong supporter of the Fourth Railway Package Technical Pillar. Its implementation is of paramount importance for the future competitiveness of the European rail supply industry as it will remove the remaining technical barriers to the Single European Rail Area.

In recent years UNIFE has worked in close cooperation with the European Commission and European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) on the development and implementation of the Fourth Railway Package. This has resulted in the new single European process for vehicle authorisation led by the Agency, being applied since 16 June 2019 in the 8 Members States having transposed the recast Interoperability Directive (EU) 2016/797.

With its enhanced role, ERA has become the European Authorising Entity for vehicle authorisation and safety certification, ensuring a uniform implementation of the EU framework. The European rail supply industry expects the Fourth Railway Package to provide a simplified, transparent, quicker and cheaper vehicle authorisation process resulting in the stable management of vehicles and vehicle types. A harmonised European authorisation process will give certainty and consistency of requirements across the EU, with less duplication of checks, testing and administration. Further benefits are expected with the vast reduction of Notified National Technical Rules undertaken as part of the Fourth Railway Package programme.

With the full transposition by remaining Member States expected by 16 June 2020, UNIFE would like to recall the overall goals and expected benefits of the Fourth Railway Package: reduced time and cost of vehicle authorisation by 20% across the EU. This can be achieved with the continued positive collaboration between the European railway sector stakeholders, EU institutions and National Authorities in implementing the harmonised system and continuing to develop the associated tools and processes for further simplification.

The Telematics Joint Sector Group is a group of 13 European associations (representative bodies and other rail associations) involved in TAF and in TAP RU/IM communications. The aim of the JSG is to harmonise the position of the sector towards DG MOVE and ERA for strategic topics (e.g. TAF/TAP RU/IM revision), for change control management of the TAF and TAP RU/IM technical documents, for managing the implementation and reporting process in collaboration with ERA. The Telematics JSG is also the central point of the TAF and TAP RU/IM sector governance and manages together with DG MOVE the Telematics RU/IM Steering Committee.

First part of the presentation will introduce RailData and its IT applications for freight railway undertakings (ISR, ORFEUS, CoReDa, ATTI, WDI…). Second part will explain how the cargo RUs perceive the TSI TAF, what they need and welcome and what are the issues hindering TAF roll out. At the end, RailData tools supporting the TAF implementation shall be listed.

The EU rail system needs to become fully interoperable in order to ensure smooth international rail traffic. This requires aligning the different rail systems based on the technical standards set by the relevant EU legal framework, and more specifically, by introducing the technical specifications for interoperability of telematics applications, for both freight and passengers (TAF and TAP TSIs). INEA is actively supporting railway undertakings, infrastructure managers and wagonkeepers to become TAF and TAP TSI compliant by co-funding projects that aim at implementing the TAF and TAP regulations. Mr Boschen’s intervention will cover the current role of the Agency in supporting rail interoperability projects, illustrate some examples of successful actions. He will present funding opportunities and give a short outlook towards CEF2, the successor programme to the current Connecting Europe Facility, which is expected to start off as from 2021. Stimulating rail interoperability remains a priority for the European Commission. Mr Boschen will therefore hint at possible future policy developments in the field.

Benefits of Shift2Rail and lessons learnt/UNIF vision of the potential new rail EU institutional PPP with Horizon Europe/Role of ERRAC and contribution of the European rail supply industry

During several last decades freight traffic by rail between the countries of the European Union and their Eastern neighbors, Russia and China received an enormous potential, which still has to be realized. Until today East-West and West-East freight traffic must cross an invisible frontier because of the existence of two different legal regimes: Europe applies the CIM Uniform Rules, while Russia, China and other Asian countries apply the SMGS Convention. The existence of these legal hurdles leads to interruption of movement, entailing delays, additional costs and administrative burdens for development of New Silk Road.
The CIT as an international association mainly of railway undertakings was created in 1902 and for many years is active in the sphere of cross-border international rail transportation. Although the main area of CIT’s work is practical implementation of the COTIF – the Convention on International Rail Traffic, it has been also actively working towards the creation of the uniform international rail transport law. After more than 100 years a lot has been achieved and a lot more still can be done to ensure fast and reliable rail transportation of goods and passengers with clear-cut coherent rights and obligations for all participants of the transportation process.
The start of the project “Legal Interoperability CIM/SMGS” dates back to the Conference on International Rail Transport Law, which took place in Kyiv in October 2003, where the participants clearly expressed their aim to make available a common consignment note which can be used in through transport and which is sufficient for modern requirements. It was identified as a top priority and the CIT readily agreed to take over this task. In 2004 the CIT organized the mentioned project with the support of the OSJD.
At the first stage the CIT worked out the new Common consignment note as a sum of CIM and SMGS consignment notes based on practical experiences and needs of the CIM and SMGS railways and customs representatives. The common consignment note was made available as of September 1, 2006 and accompanied by the Manual on its application. The Manual was consequently annexed to the SMGS as Annex 22 resp. 6, so that SMGS railways were also able to apply it. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the consignment note CIM/SMGS can be also used in electronic form, GS CIT together with the experts prepared the respective legal, functional and technical specifications for the paperless consignment note. After the most recent adjustments and updates, the new version of the documents for the e-consignment note CIM/SMGS will be published in July 2019.
At the second stage of the project new common Formal Report CIM/SMGS was drafted and added to the Manual. It allows for a standardized procedure for claims handling. In parallel, the GS CIT initiated activities to draft the uniform liability conditions for CIM/SMGS traffic that could be applied on contractual basis. Transport Conditions for Sea-Rail Traffic to be applied on contractual basis. The common CIM/SMGS consignment note and the standardization of the handling of claims were only the first steps towards a much more ambitious project - the creation of a Uniform body of law for freight traffic by rail between Europe and Asia. This task is being actively pursued by the GS CIT in cooperation with the UNECE. As result this cooperation a Political Declaration on EuroAsian Rail Transport Law was signed in February 2013 by 37 representatives of the participating countries, which undertook a commitment to officially start activities on harmonization of rail transport law within the UN framework. In addition, it invites all interested railway freight companies, other stakeholders and international railway organization to develop interim standard rules for EuroAsian rail transport contracts.
The common CIM/SMGS consignment note is a remarkable success story. Applied on more than 50 axes in 4 TEN corridors it ensures much more reliable and expedient international rail freight traffic that can easily compete with maritime transport. In recent years it was applied on long-distance transcontinental routes from China to Western Europe. Moreover, CIT is exploring together with its members further opportunities of utilizing the CIM/SMGS consignment note for multimodal sea-rail transportation, mainly on the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

Possibilities of rail connection between China and the European Union through Slovakia.
Slovakia - description and its geographical location on Silk Road
Slovakia - China BRI (relations, documents, ...)
TEN-T connections and terminals
EU-China connectivity platform
Statistics of transports between CN and EU and share of transports across Slovakia.