As such, TRIPP could not only provide some welcome redundancy and diversification, but also speed up transportation on the Middle Corridor. That might make the China-Europe route more attractive compared to the Northern Route through Russia or maritime routes.

Raw materials

At the same time, the EU highlights the importance of such infrastructure for its own economic security. For example, Türkiye, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan are among the EU’s main global suppliers of borates, phosphorus, and antimony. These resources are used in industrial applications.

“Enhanced connectivity could strengthen EU–Central Asia resource linkages, helping reduce dependency on single suppliers, integrate regional producers into EU value chains, and foster balanced, sustainable growth across the region”, the EU writes.

The Union adds that additional investment in feeder lines to access resources could “substantially enhance” the EU’s access to critical raw materials.

The adopted regulation applies to telematics applications for both freight and passenger services, including capacity management, train preparation, traffic management and management of freight wagons and their load. In the case of passenger rail, it additionally applies to ticketing and travel information. It only applies to rail transport services operating within the EU (and therefore not when operating to or from third countries).

What are the data sharing obligations?

In terms of data sharing, the regulation obliges “telematics stakeholders” that are involved in the same rail transport services in the abovementioned processes to grant each other access to data necessary to carry out those processes. If that sounds complex, the idea is simple: companies that work together need to give each other the data needed to do so. Which data that is exactly, the Commission has specified in the annex of the regulation.

Additionally, infrastructure managers (IMs) or operators of rail freight service facilities (e.g. terminals, marshalling yards, maintenance facilities, storage sidings) are obliged to provide telematics stakeholders access to working timetable data, train traffic data, train composition data and historical records via a common EU web UI.

Upon request of an EU body or a public sector body, telematics stakeholders are also required to grant direct access to data in order to monitor the establishment of the Single European Railway Area or TEN-T, as well as the development of interoperability, safety and auditing the flow of freight or passengers in the EU.

One ‘data language’

All this data is then also supposed to be exchanged in a standardised format based on the ERA Ontology.
When sharing data, it will be mandatory for stakeholders to do so through APIs or web UIs. These could be joint EU applications, a “one-stop shop” which will be mandatory for IMs to use for multi-network capacity management, train preparation and traffic management processes.

In short, the TSI supports end-to-end digital capacity and traffic management and strengthens intermodal integration, according to the European Commission. It hopes to do so by enhancing the digital connection of multimodal freight terminals to the hinterland, extended digital tracking and tracing functions for rail freight services, support for paperless freight transport, including the use of the electronic consignment note (eCN) in line with the eFTI Regulation.

“The outlook in 2025 is worse than in 2020, and falls far short of what was initially envisaged”, the Court of Auditors writes. The covid pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have led to cost increases in recent years. Compared to original estimates, costs have grown by an average of 82% for the eight examined transport megaprojects. In 2020, the cost increase was 47%.

Rail Baltica and Turin-Lyon

Two projects stand out for spiralling costs: Rail Baltica and the Turin-Lyon railway. They have, respectively, become four times and two times more expensive than was estimated initially. The growing costs could prove to be a problem for the implementing countries, since EU co-funding is “not directly linked to the total cost”. A case in point here is Latvia, which is struggling to find the funds to complete its section of Rail Baltica.

Clearly, money is an obstacle for TEN-T implementation. It is contributing to severe delays and missed deadlines. The EU auditors noted an average delay of 11 years in 2020 for TEN-T projects, but that has now escalated to 17 years.

Completely out of reach

The Court of Auditors is clear in their conclusion. There is no way that the EU will meet the 2030 deadline to complete the core TEN-T network. “EU transport flagship infrastructures are supposed to reshape Europe, bringing people closer together and facilitating economic activity”, said Annemie Turtelboom, the ECA Member who led this update report.

“But three decades after most of them were designed, we are still a long way from cutting the ribbon on these projects, and a long way from achieving the intended improvements in passenger and freight flows across Europe”, Turtelboom added.

The Auditors note that, interestingly, the EU Commission has only once employed its main legal tool to receive explanations for delays. They also expect that the recent TEN-T regulation revision will give the Commission more oversight over the completion of the network, but that the impact on currently ongoing projects will be limited.

Transport Community has published two separate reports, detailing the progress made in the Western Balkans, including their “Next Generation Rail Action Plans”, and in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The organisation thus details the rate of transposition of EU law, but also progress made on broader action plans. Those include not only transposition of laws, but also other measures, like EU cooperation, sustainability measures, infrastructure projects or operational improvements.

Progress in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia

These reports offer some interesting insights into the state of rail integration in the region. Let’s begin by looking at Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Progress on the adoption of EU regulations is very limited, with Georgia taking the lead.

The country has fully adopted half the regulations on train driver licensing and around a third of the acquis on railway safety. It lags behind on interoperability, having adopted none of the regulations. That may not be all that surprising, considering that Georgia is far away from the European rail network. Interoperability is likely low on the priority list, especially considering the importance of transit freight from Azerbaijan and Russia.

The EU integration process of Georgia has essentially halted, and one should not necessarily expect further progress on rail regulation alignment. Due to the country’s location, one could say that this is not exactly a catastrophe. Georgia is of limited relevance to the EU’s rail network, occupying a more important position on the INSTC and Middle Corridor.

No full transposition

Neither Moldova nor Ukraine has fully implemented any aspect of the EU rail acquis. Moldova has made some progress across every area (working time and passenger rights, safety, interoperability, train driver licensing and market access), save one (a regulation relating to ERA). It has not fully implemented anything yet, however.

The same applies to Ukraine, but Transport Community notes that many draft pieces of legislation are currently awaiting adoption. That could significantly boost the rate of EU acquis adoption in Ukraine in the near future.

Progress in the Western Balkans

Let’s move on to the Western Balkans and take a look at the action plan for the region. Note that this goes beyond just the transposition of the EU acquis, but includes additional measures along key pillars: rail market access, interoperability, infrastructure modernisation, safety, driver licensing, regional cooperation and sustainable and multimodal measures. See the graph below for an overview of progress made (hover over the bars to get additional information).

On a national level, it is interesting to look at the rate of transposition of EU rail regulations. There is one clear champion in that area: Serbia. That is perhaps not entirely surprising, since the country has significant EU transit flows. Aligning itself with EU practices helps to streamline those operations, such as imports from the Greek port of Piraeus that travel towards logistics hubs in Hungary.

Serbia is the only country that has transposed a significant share of regulations relating to market access (7 out of 16) and has partially transposed two. The market access rules are supposed to improve competitiveness and create fair business conditions.

Albania follows behind Serbia with 5 regulations on market access fully transposed. All the others – North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro have barely implemented any market access regulations.

In terms of adopting interoperability measures, we have another champion: Montenegro. It has fully transposed 14 out of 22 legal acts. Those include TSIs on infrastructure, energy, locomotives, noise, safety in tunnels, control command and signalling and freight wagons. Serbia follows closely behind Montenegro, and Albania and Kosovo also have relatively good scores (41% partially transposed).

The key takeaway from the Western Balkans is that Serbia is far ahead of the rest, likely thanks to its key role as a transit country. Albania also performs well in adopting EU regulations. The others have fewer incentives to align themselves, and are therefore behind. The idea is that aligning with EU regulations will open up rail markets and allow for more competitive business, but success also depends on the rate of implementation in neighbouring countries, Transport Community points out.

In June and July 2025, the test focused on derailment safety. “Several wagons connected by DACs were repeatedly pushed with increasing force into a loaded and braked line of wagons on a curved track (S-curve), which is considered particularly critical for so-called climbing effects”, writes TÜV SÜD, the owner of the test facility. Couplers of four suppliers and project partners Dellner, Knorr-Bremse, Voith and Wabtec were tested.

“The DACs were mounted centrally in the wagon line on an unloaded wagon and had to withstand a maximum horizontal compressive force of 550 kilonewtons (kN) per test. The aim was to simulate a realistic, derailment-prone scenario without an actual derailment occurring. DACs from different manufacturers were tested in various combinations to verify their respective safety and interoperability.”

Not yet included in TSIs

TÜV SÜD says that the testing results will be part of technical documentation required for the potential approval of the Digital Automatic Couplers. “So far, the DAC has not been included in the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI)”, commented Dr. Stefan Soltysiak, site manager at TÜV SÜD Rail GmbH. “For this reason, railway operators currently still have to conduct their own risk assessments for DAC deployment.”

The used test facility is ideal for the DAC tests, writes TÜV SÜD. It has an area of ​​approximately 50,000 square metres, special track formations and test benches for rail vehicle tests and tests for individual components. For the current DAC test runs, a 200-metre stretch of existing tracks was completely renewed.

“This was important for the tests with long train carriage sequences and high forces, where longitudinal compressive forces of up to 550 kN can occur – more than twice the usual”, explained Felix Bührdel, senior test engineer at TÜV SÜD Rail.

Yet, Europe wants to boost its capacities. For that reason, UIRR has put forward its ideas on how to do that from a CT perspective. Firstly, it wants a clear designation of relevant transshipment terminals for military transports along the four EU military mobility corridors, among which is the Netherlands – Germany – Poland corridor.

Policy tools

Second, in the view of UIRR, those terminals should get priority when bidding for state aid schemes for upgrades. It also wants to update the EU’s Dual-Use Infrastructure Regulation, which specifies requirements for dual-use infrastructure, to cover all unmovable transshipment technologies installed at terminals.

Moreover, CT operators should be recognised in the EU’s Resilience Directive of 2022 as critical entities for organising military transports, and should be incorporated in strategies to enhance their resilience. Lastly, the Combined Transport Directive, Weights and Dimensions Directive, the TSI Telematics Standard, the eFTI Regulation and other policy tools should ensure the “efficient functioning and resilience” of CT operators.

Moreover, weather and construction works stopped an earlier process of recovery: “The good news of the Fréjus line reopening was tarnished by extreme weather, flooding and works-related disruptions throughout the European railway network, bringing the fragile recovery of Combined Transport volumes to a halt during the second quarter of 2025”, UIRR says. The Q2 quarterly performance of CT dropped slightly by 0.16%.

A recent policy change, namely the revised TSI Wagon, is also bound to affect CT negatively. It severely hinders trailer transport by rail. “Approval of the TSI Telematics on the other hand was postponed, giving the Combined Transport Community more time to present its arguments for a business-conform solution”, the CT association adds.

The 9th EU rail market report

At the same time, the European Commission came out with its 9th report on the development of the European rail market. The Commission sees growing competition and low emissions in rail compared to other transport modes, but also persistent challenges. Those include ageing infrastructure, of which 57% is electrified, and staff shortages. Around 40% of the total rail workforce was over 50 years old as per 2022 data.

The Commission also identifies congestion and slow deployment of digital systems, such as ERTMS, a challenge to be overcome for European rail.

Abandoning SWL might be necessary to save the company. Last year, the EU found that sky-high government subsidies for DB Cargo amounted to market distortion. Those mostly went to the company’s SWL business. In other words, DB Cargo was found to be in breach of EU rules, which could lead the Union to break up the rail operator altogether. That scenario came true for the French Fret SNCF.

DB Cargo does have a chance to save itself: it is operating on a deadline to reach profitability by the end of 2026.

Restructuring is a challenge

That seems a long way off. In 2024, DB Cargo made a loss of 350 million euros. To make ends meet, the operator entered into restructuring proceedings. Around 5,000 people will lose their jobs by 2029: a tough challenge to be overcome for the company.

“The pace we have to set for the restructuring is almost beyond our capabilities. We’re demanding a lot from our people”, Sigrid Nikutta commented. “Sometimes tears flow. I know that, and I acknowledge it. But it has to happen, because the future of DB Cargo also depends on the pace.”

Even if the company was not moving as many goods as expected (15 per cent less), sales and EBIT in January and February 2025 were exactly as planned. That might be good news when it comes to reaching short-term targets. This year, DB Cargo wants to reach a loss only in the double digits, as opposed to triple digits.

An ENS contains safety and security information about the transported goods, containing a complete commercial description, an HS6 digit commodity code, and additional details of the involved parties, such as the buyer and seller.

Deadlines

The new requirement to submit ENS’s to ICS2 for rail imports goes into effect ahead of the phasing out of ICS1. Its successor ICS2 will, in principle, be mandated from 1 April 2025 for rail carriers, and ICS1 will be phased out entirely by 1 September. Businesses that were unable to make the 1 April deadline were encouraged to apply for an extended deployment window at the National Service Desk of the EU Member state where they are registered and have obtained their EORI number by 1 March.

“I started getting interested in military mobility back in around 2015 and 2016, when I was still the commander of US Army Europe and the US had just deployed small units up into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland as part of NATO’s forward presence”, Hodges recalls.

“I noticed that we were having trouble getting repair parts up to one of the units. I then asked the commander: ‘What is the problem? Why are you not able to get parts?’ And he said: ‘Sir, we cannot move military equipment across national boundaries without all kinds of paperwork.’”

Speed is key

That was a major lesson to learn for Hodges. “I thought, you have got to be kidding me. These are NATO countries and EU countries and yet you need all kinds of permissions to cross borders. I’m not talking about tanks here, I’m talking about repair parts.”

The experience of getting those repair parts to the Baltic States reflects a major issue in European military transport via rail. The objective, says Hodges, is speed. “The key is that this is about deterrence: the Russians seeing that we can move faster than them.” Rail is important, because that is how you could move a lot of the heavy equipment very fast: tanks, howitzers, armoured fighting vehicles, and more.

Areas of improvement

What, then, should Europe focus on to achieve said speed on rail? Hodges identifies three key areas for improvement, namely diplomatic or legal obstacles, the state of infrastructure and capacity. “This is not about train speed, but rather about how fast you can act and move things from A to B.”

In order to cut some of the red tape, Hodges has proposed a military equivalent to Schengen. “In Europe, you can, let’s say, move apples via truck from Poland to Portugal without stopping once. However, a military convoy will get stopped over, and over, and over again at every border crossing.” That does not help in moving quickly and deterring a potential adversary. “Obviously we would have to be in compliance with all safety and hazardous material rules, that makes sense. But you have to be able to move quickly.”

Rail infrastructure

When it comes to infrastructure, things are, simply said, not adequate. “Particularly the further east you go”, Hodges says. For example, transporting a Patriot air defense launcher becomes very difficult if bridges and tunnels cannot accommodate it. Most rail tunnels in Europe would be able to let a Patriot launcher go through, but it only takes one to stop it in its tracks.

Similarly, the various rail gauges in Europe are a challenge to be overcome. For example, rail logistics in the Baltic states becomes more difficult as a result of their broad 1520-millimetre gauge infrastructure. Most of Europe, including Poland and Germany, operate on the standard 1435-millimetre gauge. When a train carrying military equipment reaches Lithuania, one first needs to transfer everything onto a different train before continuing onwards. That takes time, and reduces speed.

Capacity

Then, there is the question of capacity. Is there enough rail to move things? “For example, DB Cargo is one of the critical organisations that we depend on”, says Hodges. “But the capacity of DB Cargo is not even a quarter of what’s needed to move armour brigades simultaneously.”

During the Cold War era, armies were not entirely dependent on rail operators for their mobility needs. “There were military organisations that were part of the ministries of defense that were specifically for rail movement. You even had rail wagons. I don’t remember the numbers, but we weren’t totally dependent on the private sector. Then after the end of the Cold War we thought we would never need this again”, says Hodges.

The former commander refers to an arrangement in the United States that could also work as a solution for Europe. Washington has the so-called Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which allows air carriers to get priority business with the Department of Defense. In return, they guarantee that they can deliver air freight transport on very short notice during emergencies.

A similar programme could work across the Atlantic Ocean. “The German Bundeswehr could pay some amount of money to DB Cargo to guarantee that they can show up with enough rail to move two brigades on 72 hours notice, just hypothetically speaking”, says Hodges. “I have also advocated for nations to get credit for their two 2 per cent [NATO defense spending requirement] if they paid for rail capacity that was on standby for very short notice.”

The Ukrainian experience

When looking beyond the EU and NATO, the one European country that has been forced to use its rail network in a military crisis is, of course, Ukraine. Is there anything the EU can learn from its experience at war?

“I have been impressed with how Ukraine has managed to keep trains moving. Everybody I’ve ever talked to that went to Ukraine for a visit, you know, they get on the train in Poland somewhere and then they ride across to Kyiv, and it’s always on time”, says Hodges.

“So even though the Russians have been attacking infrastructure, the Ukrainians managed to keep things moving, so it’s something about their resilience that is impressive. But I would also say that having some redundancy, you know, the ability to reroute whenever there is damage to a railway, the Ukrainians seem to have mastered how to do that as well. Rapid repair, redundancy.”