A Fairy Tale from the Wild East
Bejegyezve: | 2012. 11. 10. | Comments Off on A Fairy Tale from the Wild East
Once upon a time there was a small country behind the Iron Curtain. The people in this country have decided that they do not want live behind closed doors and windows and they finally could achieve their independency and they opened their borders for the freedom. The freedom of the people and politics brought the freedom of the business as well, including the liberalisation of the railway market.
Once upon a time there was a newly formed railway undertaking in that small country. The owner and general manager of that company rented a locomotive and tried to act as a real railway undertaking. He did not even know how much obstacles are on this way. In the first years, when the infrastructure manager (an integrated railway company with an own rail freight division) had to open the 20% of the track capacity, the IM interpreted the laws and its own rules in a very specific manner. Due to this, sometimes very interesting stories happened. The most fabulous story was in a March night when Gerald Retscher, technical director of the Austrian Wiener Localbahnen (WLB), was standing beside a freight train and waiting for the loading being finished. After the last forklift has left the train he breathed freely and said to András Bogdán, the general director of the Hungarian railway undertaking Floyd: “Well, this turn is OK, thank you”. A long way led to this short sentence.
Earlier that day, the infrastructure manager, MÁV, notified WLB that there can be some problem with the train, because Floyd did not ordered the path to BILK, the intermodal logistics centre. Mr Bogdán nervously showed the copy of the five days ago sent letter to Mr Retscher and said: “This letter was sent to MAV in four copies but nobody confirmed.” After this, the Austrian technical director called the head of the Freight Transportation Division of MÁV and raised his attention that he accompanies the train personally, avoiding any random or unpredictable event. Before the end of the call Mr Retscher emphasized that the traffic of the train would be hindered by any reason the European Commission receives a very detailed report about the status of the railway liberalisation in Hungary.
Moreover, Mr Dániel Antal, trustee of the Transport Secretary (later the first chairman of the Railway Regulatory Office), also accompanied the train from the Austrian – Hungarian border to BILK and back.
Nobody knows whether the presence of Mr Retscher and Mr Antal caused or not, the train driver could see only green aspects on every signals…
Today the early fights ended. An independent regulatory body was established, chaired with the earlier mentioned Mr Antal. After the regulatory body fined the state owned infrastructure manager more times and after the Court obligated MÁV to paid the amounts, the independent regulatory body was eliminated and its tasks were delegated to the National Transport Authority with strong supervision of the Ministry. The time went on. New legislation environment born from the European Union and the national laws had to be changed. The team in the ministry has been continuously working on adapting the new new decisions and directives, however, there is no such a law which can alter the manner the people think. Most of the people in Hungary do not even know that private railway companies exist. They are all surprised when somebody mentions one of them. However, the private RUs are existing and working and try to suit the continuously changing legislation environment and the customers’ demands.
The European Union is undoubtedly committed to the well working and competitive European railway sector – it is proven by numerous acts. Through the Railway Packages plenty of measurements born to strengthen the competitiveness. The European Railway Agency has been established to coordinate the work of the national safety authorities, populate and maintain some important databases and working out interoperability related specifications.
However, the railway undertakings can not enjoy all the benefits of the helping hand. Moreover, lot of them can not see the helping hand at all. The EU directives and decisions nicely regulate almost all area of the life in the railway sector but, the problems emerge when you want to use them in the everyday life.
The earlier mentioned private RU, Floyd, traditionally imports used locomotives (another tale can explain why). Lot of type authorisations were performed in a relatively simple manner until the ministerial regulation to apply altered. The reason of the change was the proper implementation of the Directive 2008/57 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community. Due to the new regulation the type authorisation procedure can be simplified if the vehicle to homologise has type authorisation in another Member State. This is a very good initiative in concept but if you want to put the concept into practise you can encounter some unpredictable difficulties. Let’s see an example from the real world. After DB Schenker UK, the former EWS, withdrawn their Class 56 fleet and freed them for sale Floyd decided to buy some of them. The transaction was done normally and the homologation process has begun. Floyd, agreed with the National Transport Authority, intended to choose the simplified procedure.
In the course of the simplified type authorization process the National Safety Authority evaluates the documentation and examines whether the locomotive interfere particular elements of the infrastructure. In order to do this test runs can carried out, or more documentation or declarations may be required. The operation concept of the train control system is also checked. In this stage its intervention points and effects are examined, mostly based on its design. The law allows six months to perform the acceptance procedure, however, in the case of the simplified procedure it generally lasts two or three months only.
To accomplish the simplified authorisation procedure the original type authorisation document is necessary. The UK’s Office of Rail Regulation could not present it. Floyd asked the French authorities as well but they could not help either, because the Class 56s worked on closed track while they were helped the construction works there. So, the full type authorisation procedure must be performed despite the fact that the locomotives of this type has been working for more than 30 years. The basic procedure, when the locomotive does not have type authorization in other Member State, takes more time because none of the list items from the decree can be omitted.
With the type authorisation gained the list of the tasks are not drawn to a close. After the type authorization is acquired the acceptance of the particular vehicle can begin. With this step the representative of the National Safety Authority compares the locomotive with the type authorization requirements and the requirements of the infrastructure operator. The test run is mandatory part of this procedure when the operator must give an evidence that the locomotive is able to stop from the maximum allowed speed within the general brake distance, and the applied train control system works properly. If the test run is successful, the representative of the NSA gives a temporary permission on the spot. The final permission will be issued one or two weeks later.
The simple vehicle acceptance together with the ERA’s vehicle database is one of the keys to the real interoperability and is a reason why the railway undertakings are impatiently waiting for the real single European railway area. In the vision of the European Commission the area is based on an integrated infrastructure network and interoperable equipment enabling seamless transport services throughout Europe and with neighbouring countries. The railway packages established the basis of the free, cross-border rail transport with the liberalisation and the interoperability rules. However, interoperability is not a set of technical rules only. Interoperability must come to the minds first. If you are a forwarding agent and you plan a transport you must not think about that the goods will be carried by seven railway undertakings through seven countries. Instead of that, in the first step, think that one railway company will forward your goods and the RU – in its own interest – will use one locomotive through seven borders. Like boxXpress from Hamburg to Budapest and back.
That’s why the railway undertakings listen to the concept of the Single European Railway Area and their leaders have plenty of conversations about that. The wishes extend to the strong European Railway Agency – the members of the railway sector welcome the possibility for strengthening the ERA’s power and scope, including the vehicle acceptance. It is sad and funny at the same time that if you want to use a vehicle in more countries of the so-called European Single Market you have to make it accepted in every single country. If the ERA cares with the acceptance procedures that can eliminate the existing protectionism – one less factor hinders the competitiveness of the railway sector.
Until that, the railway undertakings can day-dreaming.
Once upon a time there will be a railway network in Europe where you do not have to stop at the borders because (1) your accepted vehicle can cross the border without any further procedures (2) the traffic rules are the same, (3) the braking rules are the same, (4) the signalling and train control systems are the same, (5) the end-of-train plates are the same, (6) there is a predetermined language to use between the traffic control and the train staff, (6) you do not have to care with paper based documents.
The list can be amended with plenty of items and shows the length of the way we have to travel on.
