EU railway sector declaration

“One of the biggest single expenditures for operational railways is the power needed to move our trains. So, managing that and understanding where efficiencies can be made is essential. At UIC, our Sustainability Platform has worked on a number of tools that can help the ROC in reaching such efficiency (traction energy consumption and efficiency monitoring: IRS 90930 for Traction Energy Settlement and IRS 90940 for real-time operation optimisation).

Working with a range of our sectoral partners, ALLRAIL, CER, EIM, EPTTOLA, ERFA, FEDECRAIL and NB Rail, we have come together and agreed on the attached ‘EU railway sector declaration on traction energy metering and settlement.’

This sector declaration expresses how the railway sector wants to be compliant with European Regulation (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/868), but also defines the minimum requirements to make energy metering and energy settlement operational and compliant with the Railway Market and Energy Market Directives. Multiple requirements refer to and are described in IRS 90930, newly published after years of work with ADIF, Bane NOR, DB Energie, FTIA, Infrabel, MÁV, NS, ÖBB, SBB, SNCB/NMBS, SNCF and Správa železnic on behalf of UIC’s European members.

The key objective of this declaration is to enable correct traction energy metering and settlement processes to be put collaboratively in place with fewer obstacles, especially for cross-border traffic.

There are some areas where even this well-developed declaration could be improved. For the sake of achieving a sound approach to interoperability, there is a need for clarification from European institutions regarding:

• Guidance on facilitating the reuse of existing components where it is not possible to demonstrate compliance with EN 50463 or where full compliance cannot be achieved regarding e.g. lower currents or deviating temperatures.
• Permission to install EMS compliant with LOC&PAS TSI:2014 in projects at an advanced stage of development before June 2020 by January 2026.”

Consult the full declaration here: https://uic.org/europe/IMG/pdf/eu-railway-sector-declaration-on-traction-energy-metering-and-settlement_november-2020.pdf