At the kind invitation of UNIFE, the ERTMS Platform Steering board met in Berlin for holding the 13th meeting and for assisting at the UNIFE ERTMS Remote Testing demonstration.

Under the chairmanship of Mr M. ELIA – RFI CEO – and vice-chairmanship of Mr. H. Hess – SBB Consulting - at the presence of about 20 IMs, RUs, representative bodies CER, EIM and ERTMS Users Group, the meeting took place and focused essentially on the Platform strategic role as planned.

The ERTMS Platform is a body exclusively composed of railway members, Infrastructure Managers and Railway Undertakings, where all associations are represented (CER, EIM, ERTMS Users Group and of course UIC), whose main objective is strongly focused on the development of managerial and technical strategies to foster a viable migration for ERTMS, compliant with the whole railway sector interests. The Platform is currently a forum for strategic debates and common goals where railway members mutually inform each other outside the legal frame. With more lines in ERTMS commercial operation, there are emerging needs to manage the issues arising from the day to day operation. Railways have to manage and respond immediately to issues that occur in service, and they need to work together sharing the problems and solutions found.
Discussions also started on the enlargement of the coordination to the whole Control Command & Signalling area.
In order to reduce costs, eliminate double work and get maximum of synergies between sector organisations on the projects planned, preliminary discussions on the identification of areas where overlapping activities could be identified have been held - report was made on that.
Results of votes on the Platform Action Plan 2010 and beyond were also given. Infrastructure managers and Railway undertakings having supported the whole programme.