As part of the ‘Fourth Package’ of European railway legislation, the EU Agency for Railways (EUAR) was given a new role in safety certification of railway operators and systems. EUAR needed to develop effective arrangements for this, together with a charging system that was fair but which covered its costs.
In January 2016, Steer interviewed a number of EUAR’s teams about the work that had already been undertaken. The aim of the interviews was to establish the processes that would need to be introduced in order for the Agency to undertake its new roles, and to gain agreement about what assumptions should be made about those that had not been agreed.
A key part of our approach was to contact all National Safety Authorities (NSAs) to establish existing practices and charging approaches. In addition to seeking written inputs from them all, we met with a selection to talk through the business processes in detail.
We applied our economic modelling expertise to test a variety of potential approaches in order to select those that satisfied the principles we had been given and provided EUAR with a comprehensive set of recommendations for how a fair approach to applicants’ fees should be structured to cover its costs. We also recommended a workable basis for paying for the involvement of National Safety Authorities in the processes. EUAR was able to propose these to the European Commission and national bodies as part of the finalisation of the Fourth Package legislation.
A copy of our report can be found on the agency’s website.
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