TIS Functional Management

An important task related to Train Performance Management (TPM) is the functional management of the Train Information System (TIS) as the data source for performance analyses. The requirements are defined in the Guideline - Basic TIS requirements on data delivery for reporting purposes.

Rail Freight Corridor TPM Network

The network of RFC Train Performance Managers enables experience exchange between different RFCs and serves as a platform for communication and agreements on standard procedures, rules, reports, KPIs, etc. applicable by all.

Its main tasks are:

• Providing support to RFCs defined in the Guidelines for Train Performance Management on Rail Freight Corridors and thereby establishing Train Performance Management at RFCs.
• Providing support to Infrastructure Managers (IMs) and RFCs related to their TPM tasks, especially by providing performance and data quality reports and graphs (standardised as well as customised).
• In the past, the RFC TPM Network has helped to carry out several surveys and studies, such as:
• Study of delay coding behaviour: a comprehensive comparison of the rules, methodology and tools used by European IMs to collect, process, and analyse data on train runs, more specifically delays and delay causes
• Evaluation of real use of allocated capacity: a first attempt at evaluating how much of the capacity that is allocated to RU customers is actually used and, as a consequence, how much of it is ‘wasted’ (unused).

European Performance Regime

The European Performance Regime’s (EPR) objective is to design a Performance Regime (PR) that can be used both for international and national traffic – thus allowing a network to apply a single type of PR on its territory.

The immense amount of work done during this long project produced a package of results, such as the EPR Handbook 2013, the main body of which describes the entire 4-step process of the Performance Regime (from data collection to billing/invoicing) as well as legal aspects. It helps potential users of the system to understand quickly what they should put in place to implement it, and what they should expect both in terms of needed resources and possible results.

The EPR tool was developed within TIS to support the EPR process as described in the handbook, make all necessary calculations and deliver any reports needed.

EPR 4-Step Process

Stakeholder feedback has overall been very consistent. Although Step 4 of the process (application of financial penalties) is not a priority and is not likely to be applied in the short/medium term, the rules, processes, and tools that are part of the first three steps are considered to bring great added value.

In this regard, the EPR tools are currently used to support TIS data quality management.