2 ERTMS – ON TRACK FOR SUCCESS PART 3: ERTMS


Justus Stern Rolling Stock Division, Engineering & Projects, SJ AB


Challenges across the borders with ERTMS


ERTMS is a traffic management system with the clear purpose to increase competiveness for the European railways. There is no doubt that the purpose is good – creating one common standard allowing for seamless rail traffic across national borders.


The northern part of freight Corridor B, running from Hamburg through Denmark to Stockholm, will be equipped with ERTMS by 2020. It is a line including intense passenger traffic between major cities. When starting the roll out, a number of interesting challenges arise for railway traffic in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden and also in Norway. Much has been said about the infrastructure aspects on ERTMS, now it is time to handle the consequences for customers and operators.


Customer focus At present there is already a multitude of cross-border rail traffic between Germany– Denmark–Sweden–Norway. In 2000, the fixed link over Öresund permanently connected Sweden and Denmark. It led to a major growth in long distance and regional passenger traffic between the countries. The link makes it possible to work and live in different countries and commute by train. Between Norway and Sweden there is a long tradition with rail traffic crossing the border at different places. The list can be made longer with passenger traffic between Denmark and Germany, and not least all freight traffic running across the borders between these four countries. For customers, the requirement for


interoperability in the area has already been met. It was made possible by combined efforts from customer requirements, commercial interests and cooperation between the infrastructure managers. Whether signalling is called ATC, ZUB or LZB is of no importance.


European Railway Review Volume 17, Issue 6, 2011


Introducing ERTMS will just be an exchange of technology in the internal production system. This is an issue for operators and infrastructure holders, not the final customer. Thus, the requirements from customers are


simply that the introduction of ERTMS will not disturb the present traffic, and it will not increase the costs for the customer. The later issue is crucial. In the end, the final customers pick up the bill, and they are not willing to pay more for something that only performs the same task as before.


Roll out of ERTMS In the northern part of Europe, Sweden is the only country that has actually started operation with ERTMS. In August 2010, the newly built Botnia line opened with ERTMS level 2, using radio communication to onboard equipment. So far, traffic volumes have not developed as expected. There is a demand for increased traffic, but there is still a shortage of vehicles with ERTMS onboard equipment. Traffic on the Botnia line is also dependant on the adjacent Ådals line which was planned to open in August 2011 after a major upgrading including ERTMS. Opening for full traffic has now been postponed until August 2012 due to difficulties implementing ERTMS. The plan for Sweden was originally to start


with ERTMS in the new built tunnel under central Malmö (Citytunneln) when it was opened in December 2010. The plan however created major criticism from operators as being unrealistic. The tunnel is now prepared for


ERTMS but the interface between track and vehicles is converted to the legacy system ATC. For handling the requirement for operation with ERTMS, Sweden has applied for derogation until December 2013. Denmark has the most ambitious deploy -


ment plan. After thorough investigations it has decided to install ERTMS on its entire network. The reason is a major need for renewing their aging signalling equipment. It has taken the bold decision to completely exchange the entire legacy system, finishing by 2021. So far, Denmark is the only example in the northern region with a cost benefit investigation for the complete exchange to ERTMS. Norway is planning for ERTMS but has not


yet finally set its plans for roll out. A first pilot line is being projected in the south east, a part of the rural Østfold line. Opening is planned in 2014. Germany has made political statements proposing to postpone installation of ERTMS on the northern part of the freight Corridor B. The alternative in Germany seems to be to supplying STMs (the translation module to the national legacy system) to operators wanting to operate with ERTMS equipped vehicles. The deployment plans are obviously very


divergent in northern Europe, ranging for complete installation to postponing it into the far future. Compiling the different deployment plans make a complex pattern tricky to handle for the operators. It is obvious that the deployment rules in TSI are allowing very different strategies.


Technical challenges ERTMS is a rather complicated technical system containing a total of 19,271 requirements in the present System Requirement Specification (SRS)1


. The European Railway Agency (ERA) is


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