D1 - Benchmark studies on railway gauge and codification of the CT lines

According to the vision and goals in Challenge 2050, railway transport is a competitive and viable first choice of transport mode in terms of cost and quality of service for both passenger and freight users thus supporting the economy of European member states. Railway is a “value for money” choice in 2050 because of developing several policies and interoperability is a key element.

The network performance needs to be optimised by real-time traffic management, maximising capacity, optimising energy and minimising inconvenience to the passenger and the freight user. In that scenario, on the rare occasions when disruption occurs, services are automatically and dynamically reconfigured and customers advised.

Despite its great potential the railway transport, the freight transport, still represents a small share of the market in Europe. One of the main reasons, apart from the infrastructure design and condition, is that there is not a single railway gauge and there is not a common methodology for the codification as per IRS 50596-6 of the combined transport lines.

The methodology used by IMs to define the Combined Transport Profile of a line may differ from the harmonised methodology used for the definition of the clearance gauge of the line and varies from country to country, as it depends on the national regulations in force on the subject.

A new shared methodology would enhance the rail sector and make it more competitive regarding other modes of transport, contributing to improve the interoperability, facilitating the combined transport, significantly reducing costs and administrative procedures for IMs, and for RUs wishing to operate across Europe.

As far as the RTSE is concerned, it can be extracted that fundings must be targeted among others at the elimination of the system barriers to the infrastructure capacity, including gauge variances and incompatibilities, the facilitation of the interoperability.