COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT on a progress report on the implementation of the Railway Safety Directive
Date: 2014-12-17
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU law - national law, European Union Agency for Railways, national implementing measure, rail transport, safety standard, single market, transport safety













EUR-Lex - 52014DC0740 - EN











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52014DC0740

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT on a progress report on the implementation of the Railway Safety Directive /* COM/2014/0740 final */









COMMUNICATION
FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
on a progress report on the implementation
of the Railway Safety Directive 

1.         
INTRODUCTION

Article 31 of Directive 2004/49/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on safety of the
Community's railways (Railway Safety Directive)[1]
requires the Commission to submit to the European Parliament and to the Council
every five years a report on the implementation of this Directive.
This Communication sets out the progress
that has been made in implementing the Railway Safety Directive on the European
rail system since the Commission adopted its second report in September 2009[2].
Chapter 1 presents the past five years’ developments
as regards legislation based on the Railway Safety Directive and Chapter 2
focuses on its implementation and enforcement. More detail can be found in the
accompanying Commission Staff Working Document "Progress report on the
implementation of the Railway Safety Directive (Directive 2004/49/EC)".

2.         
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

A common regulatory framework for railway
safety is essential for achieving a Single European Rail Area. In this regard Directive
2004/49/EC represented a great step towards the achievement of this goal. Indeed
it established a framework for harmonising national safety rules, safety
certification of railway undertakings, the tasks and roles of the national
safety authorities and the investigation of accidents. The Member States had as
a consequence to abstain from developing their own safety rules and standards
on the basis of disparate technical and operational approaches.

2.1.                       
Recent developments in the legal framework for
railway safety

Since the adoption of the previous progress
report in 2009, secondary legislation in the railway safety sector has been
developed and the implementing acts required by the Railway Safety Directive have
entered into force (see Annex). The European Railway
Agency (ERA) has made a major contribution in drafting legislation and
providing the Commission with its recommendations.
The Commission will examine below the most
important developments achieved in the field of railway safety during the
period under consideration.

2.1.1.         
Common safety indicators

The main purpose of the common safety indicators
(CSIs) is to measure safety performance and facilitate assessment of the
economic impact of the common safety targets (CSTs). 
In accordance with Article 5(2) of the Railway
Safety Directive, Annex I was revised to include common definitions of the CSIs
and methods for calculating the costs of accidents. 

2.1.2.         
Common safety methods

Common principles underpinning the
management, regulation and supervision of railway safety, including harmonised criteria for issuing and supervising safety certification,
are essential to achieving a Single European Rail Area.
These principles, usually referred to as
common safety methods or CSMs (see Article 6 of the Railway Safety Directive), also
determine how safety levels and the achievement of safety targets are to be assessed.

2.1.3.         
Common safety targets

The common safety targets or CSTs (see Article 7 of the Directive) define
safety levels in terms of society’s acceptance of risk. Risk levels are
expressed as the number of fatalities and serious injuries per train-km. There
are risk categories for passengers, employees, level-crossing users,
unauthorised persons on railway premises, other individuals and society as a
whole. 
The CSTs facilitate the monitoring of
railway safety performance by providing a quantified measure of whether safety
in the Member States is at least maintained at the same levels.

2.1.4.         
Certification of the entities in charge
of maintenance for freight wagons (Article 14a of the Railway Safety Directive)

A new system for the certification of the
entities in charge of maintenance (ECMs) for freight wagons was another
important achievement in the past five years. Its purpose is to provide
evidence across the Union that an ECM has established its maintenance system. An
ECM’s ability to ensure that any freight wagon for which it is responsible will
run safely can be assessed using the harmonised framework provided for by Regulation
(EU) No 445/2011[3].

2.2.                       
National safety rules

Because of the lack of transparency they
engender, national safety rules (NSRs) are one of the major obstacles to the development of an internal market for
rail. Although introduced for legitimate reasons, most NSRs are a legacy of old
regulatory arrangements and are redundant in the safety system established by
the Railway Safety Directive.
Member States should keep their national
rules up to date, delete obsolete provisions and keep the Commission and ERA
informed of any amendment to such rules. Several years on, however, limited
progress had been made in amending redundant NSRs. In December 2010, therefore,
the Railway Interoperability and Safety Committee decided to set up a specific Task
Force on National Safety Rules (2011-12)
whose tasks were to clarify some areas of uncertainty about NSRs and foster
best practices.
The conclusions of the Task Force’s report included
recommendations for the dissemination of best practices and rationalising the
national rules of the Member States, procedures for improving transparency, and
proposals for the future legal framework. The Commission and ERA have followed
these recommendations in their respective areas of competence:
a)    Dissemination and cleaning-up of the national safety rules
There are still
a number of redundant, repetitive, contradictory and unnecessary NSRs which are
not in line with the European framework. 
The Task Force entrusted
ERA with launching a dissemination campaign, which included customised
information and dialogues, evaluation of the NSRs and identifying specific
priorities in each Member State it visited. 
The Task Force
developed a ‘rule management tool’ to provide guidance on the existing
legislative framework and ERA addresses to the Member States a proposal for cleaning-up
obsolete rules at least once a year. 
b)    Promoting transparency
Notif-IT is the
informatics tool for notifying new NSRs. Since April
2014, a ‘draft safety rules’ module has been
implemented for improving transparency and preventing the adoption of rules not
in line with the EU legislative framework. The database will be transferred from
the Commission to ERA in 2015.
ERA assists the
Commission in the evaluation/pre-evaluation of notified NSRs. It also drew up a
methodology for monitoring progress on transparency using the Transparency
Barometer for the railway sector and the Transparency Survey addressed to the national
safety authorities (NSAs) and Member States.
c)    Proposals for the future legal framework
In the framework
of the 4th Railway Package (see Section 2.4.2), the Commission proposed a
recast of the Directives on railway safety and
interoperability. 
As recommended
by the Task Force, NSRs and national technical rules are now referred to as ‘national
rules’ (i.e. irrespective of their justification). The procedures for establishing and notifying new ‘national
rules’ have been harmonised although separate legal bases
are still used for their adoption.

3.         
MONITORING IMPLEMENTATION AND SAFETY PERFORMANCE
3.1.                       
Member States’ transposition of the Railway
Safety Directive 

If the Directive is transposed incorrectly,
safety measures cannot be developed or improved in line with the development of
a Single European Rail Area. 
The Commission, assisted by ERA, analysed
the legislative measures notified by the Member States to check whether they
correctly transposed the provisions of the Railway Safety Directive.
The Commission requested information from the Member States on their transposition of the
Directive (‘EU-Pilot’ questionnaires) and launched infringement procedures where explanations of a lack
of, or incorrect, transposition were not satisfactory. 
A total of 26 EU-Pilot cases have been
handled, of which one was closed at pre-infringement stage. Infringement procedures
were initiated in 19 cases, of which five were already closed following corrective
action taken by the Member States concerned. One case has been referred to the European
Court of Justice. At present, there are still six procedures at EU-Pilot stage
and 14 infringement cases ongoing (October 2014).

3.2.                       
Managing and monitoring safety

While transposition is an important first
step, legislation may formally be well transposed without being correctly
implemented. If safety measures are not correctly implemented, they cannot ensure
consistently high safety levels for EU citizens. The legal framework established by the Railway Safety Directive includes methods for monitoring safety
levels and the achievement of targets.

3.2.1.         
Managing safety

Railway safety in Europe is managed at
operator, Member State and EU level. 
The legal framework created by the Railway
Safety Directive is based on the responsibilities of the major actors, i.e. the
railway undertakings and the infrastructure managers, to assess all risks relating
to the safe operation of trains and establish a safety management system (SMS) in
accordance with Article 9 of the Directive.
At Member State level, the national safety
authorities (NSAs) evaluate the quality of the SMS when issuing to the railway
undertakings and infrastructure managers the safety certificate or safety
authorisation required for performing their activity. The NSAs are responsible
for supervising the activities of the railway undertakings and infrastructure
managers during the certificate’s/authorisation’s period of validity.
At EU level, monitoring safety performance
is one of the key tasks of ERA, which conducts an annual assessment of the
achievement of CSTs and ‘national reference values’ in line with the common safety
method in Commission Decision 2009/460/EC[4]
(see Article 4 in particular). The assessment covers the 26 Member States that have a railway system, plus Norway. In 2014, for the first time, it covered Croatia, which had joined the EU the year before. 
The results of the 2014 assessment show
that safety performance remains acceptable in the majority of Member States, with
possible deterioration identified in a few. These Member States will receive
particular attention from the Commission and ERA and are expected to send the
Commission an explanation of the likely causes of the results, in line with Article
5 of Decision 2009/460/EC.

3.2.2.         
Safety overview

The NSAs and national investigation bodies
(NIBs) are legally obliged (according to Articles 18 and 23 of the Railway Safety Directive) to report
to ERA a set of specific information that can be used to assess the development
of railway safety in the EU.
Since 2006, ERA has published a report every
two years, providing stakeholders with a thorough overview of the development
of railway safety in the EU[5].
Over the last six years available railway
safety has continued to improve across the EU, with accident figures falling
considerably and casualty numbers seeing slight reductions (see Figures 1 and 2).
More than 2 000 significant accidents occur each year on the Member States’ railways.
Accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion and level-crossing
accidents constitute more than three quarters of all railway accidents,
excluding suicides. In these accidents, around 1 200 people are killed and a
similar number seriously injured each year.
Safety levels vary greatly across Member
States and risk levels in several are significantly above the EU average (see
Figure 3). A systematic approach to safety performance
improvements in these Member States would be a major step towards genuine
EU-wide safety targets in the future.
Figure 1: Number of fatalities per
victim category (EU-28: 2006–12)     
* Data not available for Croatia for 2006-09
Figure 2: Seriously
injured persons per victim category (EU-28: 2007-12)         
* Data not available
for Croatia for 2007-09 
Figure 3: Fatality risk – railway
fatalities and weighted serious injuries per million train-km (2007-12) 

3.2.3.         
Occurrences investigated by the national investigation
bodies

The number of serious railway accidents
investigated by NIBs has been stable since 2007, at around 40 per year. In
recent years, however, more and more NIBs have opened investigations into
accidents not categorised as serious under the Directive. 
For each occurrence investigated by the
NIBs, ERA receives notification of the opening of the investigation and the
final report. 
Cooperation among NIBs is important: the results
of investigations can be discussed at EU level to allow all operators to learn
from accidents and improve their safety management. ERA works with the NIBs on
accident investigation methods, reporting, recommendations and exchange of good
practice. With ERA support, the NSAs and NIBs have developed
joint guidance on safety recommendations[6].

ERA has also developed a safety information
system for sharing urgent and important safety-relevant information, thus helping
railway undertakings and infrastructure managers to take
the measures most appropriate to their particular risk profile.

3.2.4.         
Monitoring activities supported by ERA

In addition to its legal reporting obligations,
ERA monitors the activities of the major institutional
bodies on a voluntary basis, by
means of: 

 the NSA cross-audit programme, aimed
     at evaluating NSAs’ performance of the three main activities required of
     them under the Safety and Interoperability Directives (safety
     certification and authorisation, supervision and authorisation for the placing
     in service of vehicles) and to share best practices. The cross-auditing
     system was piloted between 2011 and 2013 and the first full audit cycle
     (2013-18) is now under way, with performance evaluation, support for the
     harmonisation of processes and the identifying of possible problems to be
     addressed in future legislation; and
 NIB voluntary assessments, supporting NIBs by assessing their current performance in accident
     investigation, sharing good practices and identifying practical ways in
     which their work can be improved.
3.3.       
Certification of the entities in charge of
maintenance

The certification system under Regulation
(EU) No 445/2011 provides EU-wide evidence that an ECM has established its
maintenance system and can meet the harmonised requirements. Since the
Regulation entered into force in May 2011, the following results have been
achieved: 

 the number of certified entities increased
     from 10 to 248 between May 2012 and March 2014; and
 the number of maintenance workshops certified
     in accordance with the voluntary system of certification established under
     the Regulation increased from 1 to 169 over the same period.

In order to harmonise the ECM certification
bodies’ assessments, ERA organises support activities
to foster cooperation, guidance and dissemination of best practices.

3.4.       
Further developments
3.4.1.         
Monitoring safety performance processes 

ERA developed a ‘regulatory monitoring matrix’
which can provide a systematic overview of the situation at ministry, NSA and
NIB level in the individual Member States. The aim is to see how the framework
is functioning at Member State level and so improve understanding of the
mechanisms behind systemic problems, but also of best practice in the
application of the regulatory framework that can be shared between Member
States.
First results were reported to Railway Interoperability
and Safety Committee in June 2014. The Commission and ERA proposed that the
matrix be used for a general assessment of railway safety performance in the
Member States, starting with a number of priority Member States with risk levels
significantly above the EU average (placed at the right side in Figure 3).

3.4.2.         
The 4th Railway Package and the recast of
the Railway Safety Directive

The 4th Railway Package, adopted by the
Commission on 30 January 2013, aims to improve service quality and efficiency
to make rail a more attractive choice for passengers. 
The Package includes the recast of the
Railway Safety Directive, involving principally a revision of safety certification
arrangements and migration to a single safety certificate. Instead of the
current two-part system, a single safety certificate, valid in all Member States
in which the railway undertaking operates, is to be granted on the basis of a
single application. This is consistent with the general objective of the 4th Package:
to eliminate administrative and technical barriers so as to enhance the
competitiveness of rail versus other modes of transport. 
In addition, ERA would have a greater role
and become an EU-wide authority as regards safety certification.
NSAs will continue to act as principal
supervisors for railway undertakings and to issue safety authorisations for
infrastructure managers. To ensure that they do so according to similar
criteria and procedures, ERA would be authorised to monitor their activity,
performance and organisation.

3.4.3.         
A Platform for European Rail
Infrastructure Managers (PRIME) 

In January 2014, the Commission launched a
High-Level Platform for European Rail Infrastructure Managers; this should improve
cooperation among infrastructure managers and inter alia ensure better
implementation of the common safety approach in the EU.
The first meeting on 28 January 2014 saw a useful
exchange of views on recent rail accidents on which
preventive measures should be considered. 

4.         
CONCLUSIONS

Over the past five years, the legislative acts
foreseen by the Railway Safety Directive have been adopted. The Railway Interoperability and Safety Committee held approximately
20 meetings, advising the Commission, through its comitology procedures, on
appropriate measures. This was on the basis of input from the European Railway
Agency in the form of numerous recommendations on interoperability and safety issues.
Common safety indicators, methods and targets
have been developed since the 2009 progress report. The national safety authorities
are now able to issue safety certificates/authorisations and perform
supervision according to a harmonised methodology. A harmonised system has been
established for the certification of entities in charge of maintenance for
freight wagons. The overall safety legislative framework is therefore
operational.
Some issues,
however, remain problematic:

 Several Member States have transposed the provisions of the Railway Safety Directive incorrectly
     or unclearly. This could lead to inconsistent application of safety requirements
     across the European rail system and unequal conditions for railway
     undertakings. Following infringement procedures,
     the Member States concerned are expected to adapt their national
     legislations so they are compliant with the provisions of the Railway
     Safety Directive;
 The lack of transparency associated with
     national safety rules may be an obstacle to the internal market. Although introduced for legitimate reasons, most NSRs are a
     legacy of old regulatory arrangements and are becoming redundant with the
     development of EU legislation. Member States are expected to withdraw
     obsolete rules accordingly. New NSRs should be
     limited in scope and be no more prescriptive than is necessary to meet the
     safety objectives. Moreover, the national safety authorities should abstain
     from imposing prescriptive safety rules and rather oblige infrastructure
     managers and railway undertakings fully to shoulder their responsibilities
     for the safety of the system; and
 Railways’ safety performance is in
     general satisfactory and better than that of the other land transport
     modes, but it varies widely across Member States. Article
     4(1) of the Railway Safety Directive provides that ‘Member States shall
     ensure that railway safety is generally maintained and, where reasonably
     practicable, continuously improved’. It seems ‘reasonable’ that efforts be
     made to improve the situation in those Member States where the risk level
     is significantly higher than the EU average.

On the last point, ERA has prepared a tool
for the general assessment of railway safety in each Member State. In the coming years, with some Member
States coming under greater scrutiny, more balanced results can be expected, with
an overall rise in safety levels.
Also, recent Commission initiatives such as
the technical pillar of the 4th Railway Package and the development of a Platform
for Infrastructure Managers in Europe (PRIME) have real potential to bring
further safety improvements.
Annex:
Measures
adopted by the Commission since 2009 
in application of Directive 2004/49/EC[7].
Common safety indicators (Article 5
of the Railway Safety Directive)

 Commission Directive 2009/149/EC of 27
     November 2009 amending Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and
     of the Council as regards Common Safety Indicators and common methods to
     calculate accident costs (OJ L 313, 28.11.2009, p. 65)
 Commission Directive 2014/88/EU of 9 July
     2014 amending Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the
     Council as regards common safety indicators and common methods of
     calculating accident costs (OJ L 201, 10.7.2014, p. 9)

Common safety methods (Article 6 of
the Railway Safety Directive)
a)  Risk evaluation and assessment methods

 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU)
     No 402/2013 of 30 April 2013 on the common safety method for risk
     evaluation and assessment and repealing Regulation (EC) No 352/2009 (OJ L
     121, 3.5.2013, p. 8)

b)  Methods for assessing compliance with requirements in safety
certificates and authorisations

 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1158/2010
     of 9 December 2010 on a common safety method for assessing conformity with
     the requirements for obtaining railway safety certificates (OJ L 326, 10.12.2010,
     p. 11) 
 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1169/2010
     of 10 December 2010 on a common safety method for assessing conformity
     with the requirements for obtaining a railway safety authorisation (OJ L 327,
     11.12.2010, p. 13) 

c)  Methods for checking operation and maintenance

 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1077/2012
     of 16 November 2012 on a common safety method for supervision by national
     safety authorities after issuing a safety certificate or safety
     authorisation (OJ L 320, 17.11.2012, p. 3)
 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1078/2012
     of 16 November 2012 on a common safety method for monitoring to be applied
     by railway undertakings, infrastructure managers after receiving a safety
     certificate or safety authorisation and by entities in charge of
     maintenance (OJ L 320, 17.11.2012, p. 8)

Common
safety targets (Article 7 of the Railway Safety Directive)

 Commission Decision 2010/409/EU of 19
     July 2010 on Common Safety Targets as referred to in Article 7 of
     Directive 2004/49/EC (OJ L189, 22.7.2010, p. 19) 
 Commission Decision 2012/226/EU of 23
     April 2012 on the second set of common safety targets as regards the rail
     system (OJ L 115, 27.4.2012, p. 27) 
 Commission Implementing Decision
     2013/753/EU of 11 December 2013 amending Commission Decision 2012/226/EU
     on the second set of common safety targets for the rail system (OJ L 334,
     13.12.2013, p. 37)

Certification of the entities in
charge of maintenance for freight wagons (Article 14a of the Railway Safety
Directive)

 Commission Regulation (EU) No 445/2011 of
     10 May 2011 on a system of certification of the entity in charge of
     maintenance for freight wagons and amending Regulation (EC) No 653/2007
     (OJ L 122, 11.5.2011, p. 22) 

[1]       Directive 2004/49/EC of 29 April 2004 of the European
Parliament and of the Council on safety of the Community’s railways and
amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings
and Directive 2001/14/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity
and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety
certification (Railway safety Directive). OJ L 164, 30.4.2004 p. 44.
[2]       Communication from the Commission to the Council and
European Parliament on a Progress Report on the implementation of the Railway
Safety Directive and of the Railway Interoperability Directives (COM(2009) 464
final).
[3]       OJ L 122, 11.5.11, p. 22.
[4]       Commission Decision 2009/460/EC of 5 June 2009 on the
adoption of a common safety method for assessment of achievement of safety
targets, as referred to in Article 6 of Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament
and of the Council, OJ L 150, 13.6.2009, p. 11.
[5]       Source of
the information and figures: Railway Safety
Performance in the European Union 2014,
available on ERA web site:
http://www.era.europa.eu/Document-Register/Documents/SPR2014.pdf
[6]       Guide available on ERA web site: http://www.era.europa.eu/Document-Register/Pages/guidance-on-safety-recommendations-Safety-Directive-Art-25.aspx

[7] Commission Implementing Decisions on a mandate to ERA are not included in the
list.