EU sets single rulebook for rail data sharing across Europe

As Brussels pushes ahead with plans to harmonise how infrastructure capacity is planned and managed across borders, the digital plumbing is now being locked into place. The European Commission has adopted a new telematics TSI that sets EU-wide rules for how rail data must be structured and shared.

The European Commission has adopted a new Technical Specification for Interoperability on telematics, setting binding EU-wide requirements for how rail data is structured and shared across passenger and freight services. Adopted last week, it is the latest step in giving Europe’s rail market a single technical baseline for data exchange, rather than a patchwork of national and operator-level approaches.

In practice, the TSI Telematics establishes a common framework for interoperable, non-discriminatory and transparent data sharing across the sector. Aligned with the EU Data Act, it introduces business-to-business obligations to share data, alongside defined rights to access and use it. It also standardises the required data format through a harmonised semantic model, the “ERA Ontology”, intended to ensure systems across EU states interpret rail data consistently.

With the TSI to enter into force on 2 March 2026, the specification will set requirements on data quality, cybersecurity and the safe use of digital information in railway operations. It links the telematics rules to the rollout of European “one-stop shops” for digital capacity and traffic management, tying a single data standard to the EU’s push for more joined-up capacity planning across borders. The regulation also designates the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) as system authority for the digitalisation of rail communications, giving ERA a central oversight role as the EU builds out the wider, pan-European capacity and traffic-management framework.

Passenger and freight: what changes

For passenger services, the TSI requires journey planning, passenger information and ticketing data to be made publicly available, free of charge, via national access points and in accordance with EU standards. The datasets covered include timetables and planned services, connection times and conditions of carriage, station accessibility information, and real-time and forecast train positions.

The regulation also sets expectations on retail timelines, stating that tickets must be made available up to five months in advance. Harmonised requirements for ticket data and multi-operator booking systems are intended to support future work on single digital booking and ticketing.

On the freight side, the focus is on end-to-end digital capacity and traffic management and deeper intermodal integration. The TSI will provide for the digital connection of multimodal freight terminals to the hinterland, extend tracking and tracing functions for rail freight services, and support paperless freight transport through the electronic consignment note (eCN), aligned with the eFTI Regulation.

Part of the wider capacity overhaul

The telematics TSI sits alongside the EU’s recently agreed overhaul of rail capacity management, expected to enter into force in 2026 and culminating in the first fully reformed timetable in 2030. As RailTech previously reported, an EU official described that reform as a staged rebuild of Europe’s timetabling system, introducing multiannual planning and greater cross-border coordination across what is currently a highly complex and divergent rail network. Thus the new telematics rules form the digital underpinning as infrastructure managers move towards more coordinated, EU-wide capacity planning.