The European Commission will review rail safety rules and practices and how these are being implemented, and will consider all opportunities for improvement, where necessary.

This was announced at a conference on September 8 2009 entitled "Railway safety: the way forward" in Brussels.

Joining European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani at the conference were Italian transport and infrastructure Minister Altero Matteoli and Brian Simpson, chairman of the transport and tourism Committee of the European Parliament.

The conference was convened in the aftermath of the accident in Viareggio, Italy, on June 29 2009, when a freight train derailed and a wagon exploded, leaving many victims .

Vice-President Antonio Tajani, responsible for transport said: "Although the overall level of railway safety in the European Union is high, the tragedy in Viareggio reminds us that we can never afford to be complacent about safety.
 
"I am personally convinced that we could further improve our safety levels by introducing two important elements. Firstly we should move towards a system that also includes distance-based controls for train wagons. Secondly we need to strengthen the powers of the European Railway Agency by allowing it for instance to take part in national investigations of accidents," Tajani said.

Current practice shares the use of the same railway infrastructure for both freight and passenger services, for both practical and economic reasons.

Mixed traffic needs to be managed in the safest possible way, and infrastructure and rolling stock must be properly maintained, he said.
 
The European Commission has been working to maintain and improve railway safety standards through the development and implementation of safety regulations and technical requirements, the EC said in a statement.
 
The EC said that in the wake of the Viareggio tragedy, it was appropriate to review existing rail safety rules and practices, as well as the quality of their implementation, and to consider opportunities for improvement.
 
On September 8, the EC published a progress report on the implementation of its Railway Safety Directive and of the Railway Interoperability Directives.
 
The EC’s report on the implementation of the Community rail safety and interoperability directives which, together with legislation on market access, form the legal framework for a truly integrated European Railway Area, said that the EC was "globally satisfied" with the quality of harmonisation of technical requirements but finds that the speed of implementation of harmonised rules is still slow. This is also due to the long life cycle of some parts of the rail systems, such as infrastructure and rolling stock.

"The European Railway Agency and the National Safety Authorities have only been established a few years ago, but they have already proved to be instrumental in building an integrated European Railway Area. It is my intention to strengthen the role of the agency even further," Tajani said.
 
The progress in railway safety and interoperability that the Community regulatory framework has made possible has promoted in turn a further development of the internal rail market, helping new businesses to establish themselves, cutting entry costs and, ultimately, promoting the competitiveness of rail vis-à-vis other modes of transport, the EC said.

As for rail safety, statistics indicate that the railway system in the EU is "very safe" and the organisational changes introduced under EU law "not only had no negative impact on safety but are expected to raise safety levels in the short and medium terms," according to the EC.

"From a market perspective, country-specific safety requirements still impose significant entry barriers," the EC said.
 
These relate mainly to the cost and the duration of the homologation procedures involved at national level, their disparity across Europe and their lack of transparency or predictability.

Substantial progress in this field is expected, stemming on one hand from the harmonisation of safety certificates for railway undertakings and the introduction of Common Safety Methods, and on the other from the amended interoperability directive, which will now impose cross-acceptance of national rules when authorising the placing into service of rail vehicles.

Commission implementing legislation on interoperability (the so-called Technical Specifications for Interoperability, or TSIs) is expected to be completed in 2010 as far as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) is concerned.

The increasing number of interoperable infrastructures and rolling stock and the limited number of derogations requested by member states indicate that overall the existing TSIs are being successfully implemented, according to the EC report.

Progress towards interoperability is a slow process, the EC said

Because of the long lifetime of rail infrastructure and rolling stock and the need to keep investment costs for the sector at an acceptable level, radical changes towards harmonised solutions are not possible, the Commission said.

"This is why the Commission intends to concentrate efforts on implementing those technical specifications that will deliver significant benefits in the short and medium term, such as telematics applications in signalling, freight and passenger transport."

The Railway Safety Directive of 2004 (RSD) is the main piece of Community legislation ensuring that railway safety is maintained at its high level and further improved where this is desirable.

Several players have a role in maintaining the safety of railways: the infrastructure manager, the transport railway undertaking, the owner of the vehicle, the vehicle technical manager ("keeper" in railway terminology), and the loader of the vehicle. All these actors have tasks and responsibilities that are laid down in EU legislation, national legislation, international regulations and private contracts, the EC said.

The EC said that the aim of the RSD was to ensure that safety was not used as a barrier to a fully open market.

The directive recognises that safety levels in the EU are generally high, in particular compared to road transport. This is confirmed by data from Member States over both the long and the short term.

For instance, in 2007 there was a 15 per cent decrease in the total number of accidents over 2006, mainly due to a decrease in rolling stock incidents, meaning derailments and collisions.

The RSD introduced the concept that the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers must bear the full responsibility for the safety of the system, each for their own part and in conjunction with the responsibility of manufacturers, maintenance bodies and wagon keepers.

The removal of state responsibility was seen as a key way to help the opening of the market and to ensure that safety was not used as a barrier to market entry and the revitalisation of railways. Railway undertakings and infrastructure managers are obliged to implement risk control measures, where appropriate in co-operation with each other, and to establish safety management systems.

The Directive identifies the requirements and basic elements to be fulfilled by the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers' safety management system.

This system must provide for all the procedures and processes required to ensure the safe operation and maintenance of the railway. The application of the safety management system should ensure that the risk linked with the operation and maintenance of a railway system is adequately controlled.

The safety management systems of railway undertakings must also include processes for the control of contractors and the supply of maintenance and material.

"This is important for railway undertakings, particularly those which operate freight wagons (including those which transport dangerous goods), when they do not themselves carry out maintenance. In such cases their safety management systems should state how their processes manage the verification and control of a contractor (i.e. keeper) who performs maintenance on their behalf. This includes defining responsibilities clearly and ensuring traceability of documents among the parties involved."

The Railway Safety Directive was amended in 2008, and the responsibility for maintenance is now assigned to a new player, the entity in charge of maintenance (ECM), which needs to be certified. Indeed, since the railway undertaking is responsible for safe operation, it has to get an assurance that vehicles are maintained and safe to operate. The certification of ECMs is intended to provide this assurance.

The EC report said that in the EU, inland freight transport, which is shared between road (76 per cent), rail (18 per cent) and waterways (6 per cent), amounts to 2500 billion tons/kilometre a year.

On average, distances covered by rail transport operations are longer than in road transport. In 2007, transport of dangerous goods accounted for 5.8 per cent of all inland freight transport.

Due to the organisation of railway transport, more than 60 per cent of freight trains include at least one wagon carrying dangerous goods.

According to the European Rail Agency’s historical database, from 1990 to 2005, 38 railway accidents involving dangerous goods caused 27 fatalities and 75 injuries.

These 27 fatalities have been caused by level crossing accidents (62 per cent) with dangerous goods coming from the crossing trucks, collisions (19 per cent) and derailments (19 per cent).

"With 28 fatalities, the Viareggio accident is the most severe railway accident to occur over the last two decades, the EC said.

"This kind of severe accident has a very low probability of occurring. The chance of this happening has been estimated to be around one over several hundred years," according to the EC.

The Rail Safety Directive sets out requirements for the establishment of independent National Safety Authorities.

Their role includes awarding safety certificates to railway undertakings and safety authorisations to infrastructure managers, and ensuring supervision of railway undertakings and infrastructure managers' safety management systems.

This supervision should include checking that the conditions and requirements laid down in the safety certificate/authorisations continue to be met. However, the risks arising from railway operations remain the shared responsibility of the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers.

The Directive also requires EU member states to investigate certain serious accidents and incidents (defined as those with at least one fatality, five serious injuries or with a monetary cost estimated of at least two million euro).

This is the task of the national investigation bodies which are required to carry out independent investigation and to consider the lessons to be learned from accidents without apportioning blame and to make recommendations for the national safety authorities to consider safety improvements where appropriate.