Guideline for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock

Status: Draft Guideline For Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock Contributing Member States: Denmark France Germany Italy Netherlands Slovakia United Kingdom Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 1 Status: Draft Content: 0. Introduction 1. Background a) National rules regarding the requirements of national authorisation process b) Common and international rules c) Economic and time disadvantages of cross border projects 2. Scope of the Guideline 3. Usage of a check-list 4. Experiences with cross border projects a) Cross border projects b) Development of a common check-list c) joint approval procedure 5. Recommended procedures for cross acceptance 6. Difficulties encountered in achieving mutual recognition and how can they be overcome 7. How can mutually recognised rules/standards be made visible at a European level 8. Procedures when national or common rules are amended or TSI become valid 9. Time Table Annex A: 04/49-DV08; Mandate for Task Force Draft Terms of Reference Annex B: Items for cross acceptance Annex C: Common Check-List for Authorisation of Rolling Stock Annex D: How to work with the Common Check List Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 2 Status: Draft 0. Introduction This document is to be seen as the founding for a full guideline, into which the answers to the questions that arose when compiling it (see the Summarized Recommendations), are to be integrated. In this stage it yet is guideline "under construction". 1. Background a) National rules regarding the requirements of national authorisation process Up to now the vehicle authorisation process has focussed on the national approval process, with each Member State having developed a range of national regulations and specific national authorisation processes. As an example the authorisation processes of the Task Force Member States Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, and Slovakia are based on following rules: Denmark: France: Germany: Italy: Netherlands: Slovakia: United Kingdom: Lov om jernbane, 2. December 2004 (but there are no detailed Danish rules and procedures) Arrête du 1er juillet 2004 Eisenbahnbau- und Betriebsordnung, Stand: 21. Juni 2002 Disposizione RFI 1 del 21-01-2003 Railway Act, Regulation and Ministerial Decree on Approval of Railway Vehicles (all dated: 1-1-2005) The Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2006 b) Common and international rules There are a number of common and international rules and regulations that provide procedures for the cross acceptance of a variety of vehicles: • RIV and RIC The RIV and RIC-System are agreements between Railway Undertakings for cross acceptance of freight wagons and passenger wagons. • • UIC-Leaflets Important common and international rules are covered in UIC leaflets. COTIF COTIF 99 will deliver mutual recognition on the basis of the APTU annexes that need to be developed on the basis of the TSIs. However the implementation of COTI 99 on EU territory is still under discussion. • TSI for High Speed and Conventional Rail TSIs, as far as they are in force, give regulations for EC- Member-States for those aspects covered by the TSI. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 3 Status: Draft Within the “interoperability regime” TSIs provide mandatory, harmonized requirements for high speed trains and the first TSIs for conventional rail are expected to be in place within the next few months. • CEN Standards CEN standards, often mandated under the Interoperability Directives and TSI's will increasingly take over the role of UIC Leaflets at the detail level. For example: EN 50126, EN 50128, EN 50129 provide guideline at a generic level for systems and electronic applications • Directive 2004/49/EC, Art 14 The Safety Directive 2004/49/EC, art. 14 provides a framework for the authorisation of rolling stock in one Member State, should that Member State require authorisation, when the rolling stock is already in use in another Member State and is not fully covered by the relevant TSI (“Article 14: Placing in service of in-use rolling stock”) The Safety Directive does not give any specific rules, for cross acceptance and how the procedures in this case should be handled by Member States. c) Economic and time disadvantages of cross border projects At present vehicles for Conventional Rail are authorised in accordance with national requirements by the Member State, where the vehicle is put into service, whereas High Speed trains are approved by notified bodies, as far as the TSI high speed applies. After the approval in the first Member State, the vehicle has to get an approval for cross border traffic in each Member State, the vehicle will operate. The question is now how do Member States authorise vehicles, which are already fully approved by another Member State, where authorisation is required? The “worst” case, with regard to the cost and time for the authorisation process, would be when the other Member States authorise again against the whole range of each Member States’ national, common and international rules. The Railway Industry and Railway Undertakings have already complained that this approach leads to time consuming and expensive authorisation processes for cross border projects. From an economic, competitive and interoperable point of view actions have to be taken for the acceleration of the whole authorisation process. The pressure to optimise the cross border process has increased during recent years. As mentioned above up to now there are no existing rules on a European level regarding the harmonisation of the process for cross acceptance of rolling Stock. The situation might become easier as more technical requirements are covered by TSIs. It may be some years until TSIs cover all of the necessary technical requirements. The need to find a solution for the improvement of the authorisation of cross border vehicles within the transition period has become more pressing. Therefore the EC mandated the “Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock” to develop a “Guideline for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock” to improve and accelerate the process. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 4 Status: Draft 2. Scope of the Guideline Included is rolling stock, used nationally or between one or more Member States. . The scope of the ”Guideline” covers a wide range of types of diesel and electric rolling stock, including locomotives and multiple units as far as TSI are not valid. For passenger coaches see RIC and for freight wagons see RIV as far as TSI are not valid. The scope does not include special vehicles like maintenance vehicles (EN 14033). The “Guideline” covers vehicles for cross border traffic and vehicles which are to be exported into another Member State, where the obligation to authorise the vehicle by the Member State may exist. The ”Guideline” has been developed for new build vehicles, or those which have been certified within the last three years to the current standards and are still in production, provided no major safety problems have arisen within that period. The Guideline may also be used for the cross acceptance of vehicles which are already in service. However existing vehicles in service may have been approved in many items against rules which are no longer in force and in many cases it is unlikely that they will meet the present requirements. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 5 Status: Draft 3. Usage of a check-list As mentioned above the authorisation processes in Member States can vary. On the other hand there can be found a lot of similar procedures and common rules. Widely spread among Member States is the usage of a checklist for the authorisation procedure. Within the Task Force most of the member use a checklist to do this : France: Germany: Italy: Netherlands: United Kingdom: Référentiel EBA Check List Dispositione RFI No. 1 del 21-01-2003 Railway Act, Regulation and Ministerial Decree on Approval of Railway Vehicles (all dated: 1-1-2005) Railway Group standards Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 6 Status: Draft 4. Experiences with cross border projects a) Cross border projects During the last years among the Member States have been increasing numbers of cross acceptance projects. Some examples are: - New Pendolino Alstom (I-CH-D) TGV-POS and ICE 3 MF (F–D) Trainsets AGC Minuetto (F-I) Locomotives for Rotterdam–Milano and Brenner corridor (TFI = I-A-CH-DNL) Locomotives type GM class 66 (UK, NL, D, B) - Some of the checklists, like those used by France, Italy and Germany contain the regulative and legislative basis for each item, which has to be approved in each Member State. During the work for these projects Member States learned intensively, how the other Member States are doing the authorisation process and what national and common rules are basis for the individual authorisation process. For this “Guideline” the experiences of these cross acceptance projects had been taken into Consideration. b) Development of a common checklist One of the experiences is the big advantage of the usage of a checklist for the acceptance process. Therefore the Task Force developed a common checklist, which can be found in Annex C of this guideline Basis is the checklist, which was used in the abovementioned projects. The checklist was translated in English and covers 24 out of 27 identified items, which have to be approved. The column “statutory and normative references” contains international and national references. The "international" column contains references to rules that belong to a common body of widely used rules that has been identified. The national rules have to be filled out by each Member State and should cover, within its categories, all applicable rules. Advantages of the usage of a common checklist: • transparent/comparable From the beginning on of a project the items, which have to be clarified are “on the table”. The opinion of each partner to each item is visible and comparable for all involved parties on the first sight. • structured The checklist gives the negotiations a fixed structure. Therefore is very important, that none of the partners do any changes of the structured order of the list. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 7 Status: Draft • gives the basis for a project planning Together with an agreed project management the usage of the common checklist helps to accelerate the process and to minimize the costs for cross acceptance projects c) Joint approval procedure Experience has been gained with coordinating the approval procedure for vehicle types. This included safety organisations: - cooperating in defining the combination of rules to be applied optimising the practical tests needed for the approval process (preparing the prototype just once, to take all test directly behind each other sharing the work involved in the process - It has shown that the time needed for the total procedure might be reduced to about one quarter of the time needed when there were no coordination. The savings in time and money for the applicant need no explanation. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 8 Status: Draft 5. Recommended procedures for cross acceptance a) Starting with a joint procedure and driving it For the development and approval of vehicles, it is strongly recommended that manufacturers, Railway Undertakings and Contracting Entities approach the approval bodies from all countries for which they intend to ask approval with a request for a joint procedure, involving them from the start and thereby permitting to decide on the most efficient path for the approval process. This procedure applies to the technical approval of vehicles that are: - not fully approved under TSI's - not fully approved under RIV/RIC-agreements - not fully approved under COTIF Vehicles (or parts of them) approved under TSI's, RIC-RIV and COTIF are by principle mutually approved. Linking a vehicle to its keeper (national or foreign) and the maintenance and condition management that the keeper must carry out are not part of this procedure. b) Setting up the common check list The Task Force strongly recommends the use of the common check-list (Annex C) for cross acceptance projects by all Member States. The structure of the common checklist should not be amended. The common check list should contain all relevant rules of each Member State. The approval requirements according to the common check list are divided in three groups, A, B and C Group A: contains internationally accepted standards that, once checked by any member state, do not need further checking for cross acceptance. (These standards shall also be used for the development and revision of the conventional rail and high speed rolling stock TSIs, such that the cross acceptance of future new build vehicles is facilitated.) Group B: contains requirements that are currently used in specific countries and that - might be fit for cross acceptance might need further detail-discussion to move parts to A or C, now or later, in general or for a specific country. are not undisputable and undeniably essential and necessary standards and requirements linked to the technical characteristics of the infrastructure for safe and interoperable operation in that country. - A vehicle could still run when not fulfilling the B standards, just like it is doing already elsewhere, if the applicant can prove that an equivalent to the relevant national requirements has been achieved. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 9 Status: Draft Group C: contains undisputable and undeniably essential and necessary standards and requirements linked to the technical characteristics of the infrastructure of a specific country or network, that they always need checking, e.g. loading gauge. (These may be defined in the ‘Specific Cases’ of the TSIs and are also described in Article 14(2)(c) of the Directive 2004/49/EC. It is important that all Group C standards are identified and eventually contained within the conventional rail and high speed rolling stock TSIs during their development and revision.) Groups A/B/C do not include "rules" for purely local requirements and restrictions that apply only to (minor) parts of a country's infrastructure. Checking them is part of the regular checks for route availability to be organised between RU and IM. c) Dealing with the results of the proofs against the common check list An authority that handles "first/type approval" supplies, with this approval, a “result list” of the Group-A reference documents that a vehicle (type) has been checked against. Where appropriate, it mentions the level of the check or the resulting dimension. It also mentions derogations from this document (e.g. within gauge G2, but cabin steps exceed gauge by 3 cm) and if thereby A-requirements are met for a specific parameter. The authorities format the “result list” according to the checklist accompanying this procedure and as an official document (appropriately drafted and signed etc.). It may be a declaration of an EU or national notified body, countersigned by the authority. Authorities of other countries where approval of the vehicle is sought, accept the "result list" as full proof of compliance with the referred Group-A documents. Similarly, the "result list" mentions - where practicable - whether and how B- and Citems were checked, and which documents these checks refer to (Sometimes results can be useful for other authorities; sometimes there might be interference between requirements or required outcomes.) For the C-items, a check according to national practice is necessary, as specified by the national authority. When possible, use is made from earlier tests and checks. For the B-items, a check according to national practice and against national requirements can be necessary. The applicant can deliver arguments that he can provide an alternative solution.. The national authority has to provide adequate arguments why it cannot accept a positive verification against a different, foreign standard. The authorities should work together to update the A/B/C-grouping and to reduce the number of B-items. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 10 Status: Draft 6. Difficulties encountered in achieving mutual recognition and how can they be overcome The Task Force identified two important barriers: a) Unawareness of authorisation procedure and requirements in another Member State Member States do not have the same approval procedures and requirements. A Member State can accept the approval of another Member State, when he has information on how the approval was done in another Member State. Some Member States have cross acceptance experiences of many projects (Germany – Netherlands – France – Italy – UK – DK – Austria etc.). Those Member States have the knowledge of and trust in what was done in the neighbour Member State Therefore in these cases it is easier to accept the authorisation of the other Member State. For some Member States there is limited experience of cross acceptance projects. In this case the usage of the Common Check – List is a helpful tool to establish the processes applied in another Member State and the associated requirements. b) The obligation to apply national law The most important barrier for cross acceptance is national law. Railway Safety Authorities are often obliged to keep the national legislation unless there exists an additional rule of national law, which opens the possibility to decide against the basic national rule. The national barrier for cross acceptance should be overcome by changing national law and explaining existing or introducing new European law. In most cases there is need to check against notified national standards but such a process is legally not open for a check against a mixture of Member States own notified national standards and acceptance against different but broadly equivalent notified national standards from another Member State On a European level a Commission decision could problems. help to overcome the actual The decision should give the Member State - on the basis of Art. 28 and 30 of the European Treaty – room for accepting the approval of another Member State unless there exists undeniable, reasonable and provable reasons for not accepting such an approval. The decision should include the advice to the Member State to use the “Guideline for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 11 Status: Draft 7. How can mutually recognised rules/standards be made visible at a European level The process of cross acceptance is permanently developing. Therefore the Task Force recommends that the “Guideline” should be tested for a certain period of time to gain experience with the use of the “Guideline”. The Common Check-List should be filled out by each Member State. Annex D is a letter which gives Member States the first information how to work with the Common Check-list. During that period the Member States should agree to cross accept the approval of the other Member States for the items, which are categorized, with an “A”. Simultaneously each Member State should make efforts to move as many items as possible with the category “B” to become a category “A”. For this purpose the Common Checklist will become an important and useful tool, to accelerate the whole process. Another important step to accelerate the whole process could be done if Member States would make agreements on a bi- or multilateral basis among each other to fulfil this “Guideline” during the test period. The European cross acceptance process should be permanently accompanied and evaluated by an independent organisation, which could be ERA. The time to experience the findings could take for about two years. After that period based on the experiences and the evaluation of the development it should be decided how the process should be amended and continued. The aim after the period of transition has to be that: • • Member States are obliged to cross accept items of category “A” among Member State Category “B” items were reduced or became unnecessary. Part of the evaluation could be a permanent report to the EU Commission on the development of the categories “A” and “B” in each Member State. Category "C" items will stay necessary over a long time. They can expected to become "special national cases" in the appropriate TSI's • Notified Bodies can be involved within this process. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 12 Status: Draft 8. Procedures when national or common rules are amended or TSI become valid a) National rules Each Member State is responsible for providing input to the Common Check List , including identification of the standards applied for the checklist items. b) Common rules or TSI The Common Check List should find a place in the approval procedures under the Interoperability Directives. The Keeper of the Common Check-List should be ERA, under an appropriate mandate.. Therefore ERA should be responsible for the further development of the Common Check-List and should inform the Member States of any changes. This is an outcome of the ERA tasks related to national safety rules according to art. 8 of the Safety Directive 9. Time Table December 2005: January 2006: February 2006: April 2006: June 2006: Decision of Art. 21 Committee based on the suggestions of the “Guideline for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock” Sending out of the Common Check – List to all Member States Draft Mandate for ERA to monitor the European cross acceptance process Member States sent the filled forms of the Common Check-List to ERA Complete European Check-List with all relevant rules of the Member States. ERA starts monitoring the Categorisation of A-B-C items and gives a first report to Art. 21- Committee. Task Force for Cross Acceptance of Rolling Stock – 05.12.2005 13