‘ERTMS is not a product, it’s a mindset’: experts on how it should evolve

Thilde Restofte Pedersen of Nordic Signals, Karel van Gils of Europe’s Rail, and Jarlath Lally of The Signalling Company all agree on one thing: that ERTMS should evolve. They discussed the bottlenecks at RailTech Europe 2026: with the added urgency of military mobility, the challenge is getting Europe’s digital rail signalling system from slow deployment to a coordinated faster rollout, and lowering the costs to make it realistic. Jo de Bosschere of ERA dove into the changing techinical standards to update the ERTMS framework. 

Thilde Restofte Pedersen (CEO, Nordic Signals), Karel van Gils (Programme Manager, Europe’s Rail), and Jarlath Lally (Head of Sales and Product Management, The Signalling Company), tackled the broader challenges of ERTMS deployment during a panel earlier this month at RailTech Europe.

The cost of retrofitting and upgrading trains for the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) has doubled in just four years, according to an in-depth EU study from last year.

From engineering-centered to purpose-led

Van Gils noted that Europe’s Rail is increasingly focused on deployment, not just innovation. “We are asking for €15 billion to accelerate the pre-deployment of new developments,” he said. “To do a common scale-up mechanism and some first-mover test cases of new TSI (Technical Specifications for Interoperability)
requirements.”

Pedersen called for a military-level urgency. “If we were looking at ERTMS in a military context, taking the railway as critical military infrastructure, what will it take to get troops from the Atlantic coast to the Ukrainian border in 24 hours?” she asked. “We need that sort of objective to sit down and do the specifications. Things are very engineering-centric at times and not very purpose-led on what we want in the end.”

Lally stressed the need for strategic alignment across Europe. “We need to move from national programs with 10 to 15-year durations and ring-fenced funding,” he said. “We built a tunnel that runs under the ocean; surely we can get our act together and manage this.” He also pointed out that 30 countries outside Europe are adopting ERTMS as a national standard. “If we don’t hurry up, they are going to do it faster than us,” he warned.

Constant updates

Van Gils argued that the shift to FRMCS and digitalisation opens new possibilities. “Why do we need three or four antennas on the roof in the current architecture? We can do it in a different way,” he said. “The added functionalities of digitalisation allow for fast upgrades and updates.”

Pedersen framed ERTMS as a mindset, not just a product. “What we have been building into the trains today is like big fridges from the 90s,” she said. “We need small boxes on the train so we don’t have to dismantle the whole thing and throw out the toilet to make space for the equipment. We need to stop thinking that one day it will be locked and then we can roll it out. We need to update it constantly.”

Baselines, software, and the future of interoperability

Lally addressed the challenge of baselines and technical governance. “If you consider that the core platform is essentially a software platform, it means you have inbuilt scalability,” he explained. “A new baseline comes along, and it’s just a software upgrade that you can do over-the-air.” This approach turns the business case into a future-proof pathway for fleet operators.

An audience member raised the concept of software-defined rail, suggesting a move away from balises and local sensors. Lally agreed, announcing plans to open The Signalling Company’s operating system to third parties. “The whole idea is to make it very easy to swap devices as they become obsolete,” he said.

What’s holding Europe back?

Pedersen identified the lack of a common EU framework as the biggest obstacle. “Right now, the EU has been letting every member state fail on their own and then try to get up again,” she said. “We need a much clearer direction.”

Van Gils called for top-down and bottom-up action. “Member states must stop making their own regional requirements and specs and accelerate the cross-border corridors to make it cheaper for customers,” he said. He also encouraged smaller industries to develop software-driven solutions. “We are in the middle of a change from hardware-driven to software-driven,” he noted.

Lally of the Signalling Company criticised the lack of consensus on standards. “It’s absolutely insane that you can have vastly different interpretations of the same thing going from country to country,” he said. “The telecom sector figured this out a long time ago and fixed it.” He also advocated for interoperability between devices, ending the practice of forcing operators to buy all modules from a single vendor.

The discussion ended on a note of urgency. “We need to force the various bodies to come to a consensus on the interpretation of standards and specifications,” Lally said. “That’s something we need to address.” As Pedersen put it, “We need to push from the top down so the member states are not just drowning on their own.”

Change is needed

Jo De Bosschere, Head of the ERTMS and Telematics Applications Unit of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) laid out the challenges and opportunities ahead, from evolving technical specifications to the urgent need for faster, cheaper deployment.

He first highlighted the current financial burden of ETCS System Compatibility (ESC) testing. “If you have a vehicle running in two or four countries, you have to do those tests in each of those countries,” he said. The costs vary dramatically: in Belgium, tests take two days and three nights, while in other countries, they can take a year to get access to the track, three months to complete, and cost between €300,000 and €800,000. “This is really an area where we look to speed up that process,” he added.

He presented changes in the regulatory backbone of ERTMS, a process that is in the works right now. The Control-Command and Signalling Technical Specification for Interoperability (CCS TSI) is not static. “ERTMS is based on specifications regulated via the CCS TSI, and that CCS TSI keeps evolving,” he stated. “Whether we like it or not, changes are necessary.”

One of the most urgent challenges is the phasing out of GSM-R, the current radio system, which will become obsolete within 10 to 15 years, and replaced by the Future Rail Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) . “We need evolution, but also stability and faster deployment,” De Bosschere emphasised.

The process for evolving technical standards

The European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) does not act alone; it responds to European Commission (EC) requests and collaborates with the rail sector. “We call it an EC request,” explained Jo de Bosschere. “The EC asks us to look at several TSIs, not just CCS. We then work with the sector to create a recommendation for the Commission.”

The process involves multiple steps. After ERA’s work, recommendations must be translated into the TSIs, requiring approval from member states via the Railway Interoperability and Safety Committee (RISC). In August 2024, the EC issued a high-level request covering all impacted TSIs, with objectives including the completion of the Single European Railway Area (SERA), optimised regulation, and innovation uptake. “We have deadlines for recommendations in 2026, 2028, and beyond,” De Bosschere noted.

For the CCS TSI specifically, the EC’s request includes 15 points on SERA, 9 on optimised regulation, and 11 on innovation. ERA has established working groups to address critical issues, such as reducing ETCS System Compatibility (ESC) testing, currently a time-consuming and costly process, and developing standardised engineering rules for trackside infrastructure and large-scale retrofitting. “We’re doing pre-assessments with the System Pillar in Europe’s Rail to analyse their proposals early with a multidisciplinary team,” he said.

Standardisation and harmonisation as key goals

The overarching goal is greater standardisation and harmonisation to cut costs and speed up deployment. The 2023 CCS TSI update introduced several advancements, including Automatic Train Operation (ATO), FRMCS interfaces, hybrid train detection, and supervised manoeuvres. It also paved the way for an Ethernet bus system to enhance onboard modularity.

Looking ahead, ERA’s priorities are divided into short-, medium-, and long-term phases:

• Short-term: Integrating cybersecurity (aligned with the NIS Directive and Cyber Resilience Act), maintenance releases for error correction, and urgent FRMCS specifications.

• Medium-term (5-8 years): Focus on operational harmonisation, standardised trackside engineering, onboard modularity, and Driver-Machine Interface (DMI) ergonomics.

• Long-term (post-2030): Development of next-generation ATO (Levels 3 and 4 for driverless operation) and “Full ASDP” (Advanced Safe Train Positioning) using satellite technology.

Reducing complexity and costs

De Bosschere stressed the need to eliminate redundant ESC testing and transition from trackside engineering “guidelines” to mandatory “rules”. “Eventually, we hope for no ESC at all and a focus on ETCS Level 3 without trackside detection,” he said. “This is the only way toward a completely interoperable European railway.”

ERA is also advocating for a more industrial approach to ERTMS. “ERTMS is currently a toolbox in a non-harmonised railway,” De Bosschere noted. “We want to stabilise the ETCS toolbox.” With 58 enhancements from the System Pillar and over 40 change requests, ERA must assess these from an economic perspective, avoiding costly “nice-to-haves” that don’t deliver real benefits.

Streamlining retrofitting for faster deployment

A key proposal is a standard retrofitting package for vehicle authorisation. Instead of assessing vehicles individually, ERA suggests grouping similar types for a common risk analysis and simplified “conformity to type” authorisation. “This would require legislative changes but would significantly help the sector speed up deployment,” De Bosschere explained. The aim is to reduce bureaucracy and accelerate the rollout of ERTMS across Europe.

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