The European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) has issued the first vehicle authorisation for operations across Europe. The historic document was delivered in three weeks after ERA becoming European authorising entity for rail traffic in all European countries.

ERA has granted first conformity-to-type for 30 freight wagons. “ERA succeeded in taking the decision on this conformity-to-type authorisation well within the legal timeframe of 4 weeks. Considering that this first authorisation is a learning process for all parties involved, I congratulate the experts from the manufacturer and ERA to have managed this so well,” noted Thierry Breyne, Head of the Planning and Approvals Delivery Unit at ERA.

In the first two weeks, ERA received more than 30 valid applications for vehicle authorisations and two applications for single safety certificates, involving most of the countries that have transposed the new legislation in 2019. ERA has assigned dedicated multilingual expert teams to assess each application. “Thanks to our learning case programme prior to 16th June, and the excellent cooperation between ERA experts and the applicants before and prior to the authorisation process, we are well-prepared to efficiently manage the new applications. I’m proud to say that our processes have been running smoothly from day one,” said Josef Doppelbauer, Executive Director of ERA.