Safety Regulations and Standards for European Railways
1 February 2000
By Stuart Holder and Michael Spackman et al.
Transport has for many years been one of Europe's fastest growing industries. However, this growth has not generally been shared by railways, despite their being environmentally friendly and the safest mode of transport. The European Union has addressed the many reasons for the relatively slow growth of rail traffic, and developed a strategy to reverse this.
Safety regulation has been only in the background of these developments. However, safety regulation regimes can have important implications on interoperability, the market in railway equipment, and competitiveness of the industry. These effects are both static -- decisions about safety-related harmonization or prioritisation can have important impacts on expenditure programmes of billions of euro -- and dynamic, as removing obstacles to innovation or new entrants can encourage evolution and growth.
This study investigates the extent to which European railway safety regulation has adapted, and might usefully further adapt, to the more varied and challenging needs of a world of competition in train operation, a single market in equipment, and new train services, both within and across borders.
