The European Coordinator for ERTMS has published the third work plan on the state of ERTMS deployment in Member States. Although progress has been made and political commitment to modernising Europe’s railway infrastructure and rolling stock has been renewed, the plan highlights that deployment is uneven and slower than required.
The work plan indicates that ERTMS implementation remains significantly behind schedule and risks failing to meet the objectives set out in the TEN-T Regulation. The report shows that in 2024 ERTMS was installed on 12,400 km of lines, representing 10% of the TEN-T network, of which 10,600 km are on the core network (meaning 17% of it is equipped). By 2030, approximately another 28,000 km of the TEN-T network are planned to be equipped with ERTMS, including 22,000 km on the core network. However, the new work plan reveals that, based on current planning, the objective of deploying ERTMS on the core network will be achieved only to about 50%.
Regarding the deployment of ETCS onboard vehicles, by the end of 2024 a total of 8,730 vehicles were equipped, representing 19% of the existing rolling stock fleet. The number of vehicles contracted or planned to be equipped is about 13,600, significantly increasing the annual rate achieved over the past four years. “While this demonstrates progress, in many cases it remains insufficient to allow the gradual phase-out of national, so-called ‘Class B’, systems. It is now widely accepted that ERTMS roll-out must be a synchronised process involving both trackside equipment and rolling stock,” the report states.
As a result, deployment remains considerably behind schedule and risks failing to meet the targets set out in the TEN-T Regulation.
Measures to accelerate ERTMS deployment
The European ERTMS Coordinator, Matthias Ruete, stresses the need to accelerate deployment and achieve implementation at industrial scale in order to meet the objectives of the TEN-T Regulation. To this end, the third ERTMS Work Plan sets out the following key actions:
- Strengthening governance and coordination to ensure more consistent and timely deployment of ERTMS across Member States, particularly on cross-border sections.
- Ensuring sufficient and stable financing to give stakeholders the certainty needed to make long-term investment decisions.
- Adopting a long-term deployment approach, moving beyond project-by-project implementation towards coordinated network-level action plans.
- Treating ERTMS deployment as a strategic modernisation of the rail system, integrating technical, operational and organisational aspects.
ERTMS aims to improve the safety, efficiency and interoperability of rail transport across Europe by standardising signalling and communication systems. To guide this transition, the EU has established long-term milestones in the TEN-T Regulation, beginning with the requirement to deploy ERTMS on the TEN-T core network by 2030 and gradually extending deployment to the rest of the TEN-T network by 2050.
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