A technical specification for interoperability (abbreviated as TSI) is a text provided for in European Directive 2016/797 adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the interoperability of the
European rail system in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.
This directive stipulates that the railway system is divided into 8 subsystems:
# infrastructure
# Traction energy
#
control command and the trackside signalling
#
control command and the on-board signalling
# rolling stock
# Traffic operation and management
# Maintenance
#Telematic applications for passenger and freight services.
It also provides that a technical specification for interoperability (TSI) is drawn up for each subsystem.
These TSIs define the essential requirements of the above-mentioned European directives for specific cases and define a set of technical requirements that apply to new subsystems put into service.
These requirements constitute a set of conditions necessary for putting into service, but these conditions are generally not sufficient to guarantee safety, so they must be supplemented by some additional measures.
They do not cover all the fields of the regulatory requirements, but for the fields they cover, they prevail over the national texts.
Legal basis
When the first TSIs were published, they still had separate legal bases: one for the interoperability of the high-speed rail system (European Community Directive 96/48/EC) and one for the interoperability of the conventional rail system (European Community Directive 2001/16/EC).
The matters covered by these two directives have been merged and regrouped in the European Community Directive 2008/57/EC, which in turn has been taken over by the European Union Directive 2016/797/EU.
Directive 2008/57/EC was repealed as of 16 June 2020, by which time the new Directive 2016/797/EU had to be transposed into national law.
Drafting and approval
TSIs are drafted by the
European Railway Agency
The European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) is an Agencies of the European Union, agency of the European Union (EU) that sets mandatory requirements for European railways and manufacturers in the form of Technical Specifications for Interoperabi ...
on a mandate from the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
. The working group set up includes members of the national safety authorities and members of organizations representing the sector.
Once completed, they are submitted to the
European Union Member States Committee for its opinion before being decided by the Commission. They are then translated into the official
Languages of the European Union
The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages, of which threeEnglish, French and Germanhave the higher status of "procedural" languages of the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working la ...
before being notified to the Member States.
Transposition into French law
The Interoperability Directive is transposed into
French law
The Law of France refers to the legal system in the French Republic, which is a civil law legal system primarily based on legal codes and statutes, with case law also playing an important role. The most influential of the French legal codes is ...
by Decree 2019-525.
TSIs adopted in the form of a decision by the commission are systematically transposed by decrees (more precisely by the decree of 19 March 2012
). TSIs adopted as regulations by the commission are directly applicable by all.
References
External links
EU Portal: Interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system
{{DEFAULTSORT:Technical specifications for interoperability
Rail transport in Europe