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Europe’s rail associations have raised concerns about draft guidelines for penalties under the EU’s new Capacity Management Regulation. Following a stakeholder consultation, ALLRAIL, ERFA, FTE and UIRR warned in a joint feedback that the approach being developed by infrastructure managers is “neither fully reciprocal nor sufficiently customer-oriented”.

The Regulation introduces reciprocal penalties for infrastructure managers and applicants when allocated capacity is changed. The associations stress that, given the potential financial impact on railway undertakings and other applicants, the system must be fair, transparent, proportionate and applied consistently across Europe.

Among their main recommendations, the associations call for a clear and reciprocal definition of a “significant change”, which determines when penalties apply. They favour a continuous penalty model under which charges gradually increase as the operating date approaches, rather than a system based on fixed thresholds. They also request greater transparency regarding the timelines and modulation factors used to calculate penalties.

The quality and operational suitability of any alternative capacity should also be properly considered, taking account of the different needs of freight, passenger and night-train services. In addition, penalties linked to infrastructure managers should be calculated from the point at which an alternative train path is allocated, rather than when a possible change is first announced.

Before the system is implemented, the associations propose a joint simulation involving both infrastructure managers and applicants. This would allow the mechanism to be tested against realistic operational scenarios and help ensure that the final rules create balanced incentives while serving the needs of rail customers.