The meeting of Eurostat’s Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics was held on 1 and 2 October at the Eurostat Headquarters in Luxembourg.
Representative members of the EU countries and international organisations involved in railways statistics such as UNECE, ITF, ERA, CER and UIC attended the meeting to discuss the main regulations and improvements in data collection of the EU rail sector.
In this framework, UIC presented its Environmental Strategy Reporting System (ESRS). Gabriel Castañares Hernández, UIC Senior Advisor in Energy and CO2, presented the UIC experience on the energy consumptions data collection for the European UIC members included in this system. Next, a description was given of the website and the main process on collecting the data introduced by the train operating companies.
A relevant part of the presentation focused on the integration of different data sources such as the case of the energy mix of electricity consumed by railways. The dual reporting of CO2 emissions, including the market based approach, with the Guarantees of Origin for green electricity defined by the EU legal frame, and the national production mix for the location based approach, allows the same methodology to be used to calculate the CO2 emissions from electricity of the companies included in the ESRS.
The development of the UIC Zero Carbon Project and its conclusions were also been highlighted as a way to adopt a common methodology, avoiding differences in the source of data used to calculate the CO2 produced by railways.
The cooperation and the exchange of indicators and methodology on this topic between Eurostat and UIC for CO2 emissions in rail services, using the ESRS methodology, will improve the existing indicators, conversion factors and data provided by Eurostat.
The ESRS is the system used by UIC to collect information on energy consumption and CO2 emissions, including a dedicated website to upload the information and a policy for external communication of information. The ESRS is the basis to monitor the trend of carbon emissions and energy efficiency performance in railways facing the UIC targets for 2020, 2030 and 2050. The data collection process of the ESRS for 2015 is the first one including the indicators for dual reporting.
