The European Performance Regime (EPR) project aims to develop an international bonus / malus scheme to support the punctuality of international trains. During an EPR Advisory Group meeting which was preceding the approval of the EPR Handbook by the UIC Regional Assembly for Europe, the need for quality improvements in larger perspective was raised by several RU representatives. They strongly argued the need to have common RU-IM quality circles where the expected EPR results could be used for further quality enhancement.

In this respect, a special meeting was organised on 19th of February in Frankfurt among the EPR partners. The participants unanimously agreed that such quality circles should be built within existing working groups in order to avoid double-work and contradictory proceedings. Consequently RailNetEurope (RNE) was asked whether a special RU-IM joint action could be integrated within the existing RNE working bodies of “Quality and Operation Group” and / or Corridor Performance Management”. If officially approved by RNE, the RUs Companies (starting with the EPR Early Implementers) could strengthen the integration of RU aspects within these working bodies to improve the overall quality.