Vienna Declaration on Digitalisation in the Railway Sector

The following declaration was signed by CER and European railway CEOs at the Rail CEO Summit hosted by Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB in Vienna on 9 July 2022.

The European rail CEOs agreed that digitisation is the key factor for the future success of the rail system. The declaration states that digitisation will help the European rail system to develop further and thus make it more competitive and resilient. This would make a significant contribution to achieving the aims of the Green Deal. Therefore, the declaration contains measures for a common future of the European railway in the following areas: 

• "smart tecnology" and "smart technical operations", where the European railways want to cooperate at a technical level in order to jointly optimise rail capacities and thus their competitiveness compared with road transport. One joint project resulting from this is, for example, the Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC).
• "smart infrastructure," where rail infrastructure is to be designed in such a way that cross-border rail traffic through Europe is simplified and there is more rail capacity for both passenger and freight traffic. Passenger and freight transport itself should also become "smart" - and be harmonised through cooperation, even across national borders.
• "smart ticketing," where the European railways are committed to the joint CER Ticketing Roadmap, which, among other things, is intended to make it easier for passengers to book international train tickets.
• "smart human resources," in order to get employees on board with the path to the digital future at an early stage.

Read more in the full declaration available to download below.