Incidents on the railway infrastructure can affect the railway system´s operation heavily. Most incidents are handled at the regional or national level by the responsible Infrastructure Manager. If trains on networks of neighbouring infrastructure managers are affected, the traffic management of neighbouring infrastructure managers is informed directly and involved in the incident management process once the affected trains could cause an impact on traffic management.
If more than 50% of trains on the affected section need an operational treatment, and altogether this lasts for three or more days, it needs high-level management attention within Infrastructure Managers, Allocation Bodies and Railway Undertakings.
International Contingency Management
To coordinate incidents and disruptions, the International Contingency Management (ICM) Handbook was introduced in 2018, with revisions in 2021 and 2024 reflecting the gained experiences.
The handbook describes standards that allow the efficient handling of disruptions to achieve the continuation of traffic flows at the highest possible level. RFCs play a significant role as facilitators in the communication process, helping to minimise the impact of disruptions.