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Future Rail Technology Forum
The NTC held its fourth Future Rail Technology Forum in Melbourne in November, bringing together leading international rail experts to support a coordinated, cost-effective rollout of European Train Control System (ETCS) across Australia.
Rail experts from the UK and Europe shared valuable insights from their own national implementations, giving Australia’s rail leaders the chance to learn from global experience -highlighting both the opportunities ahead and the pitfalls to avoid.
The over-riding message being:
Keep it simple. Configure don’t customise.
As the Hon. Melissa Horne, Victorian Minister for Ports and Freight, noted in her keynote address, Australia is entering a once-in-a-lifetime transformation in how we plan, design and operate our rail networks to boost safety, efficiency and productivity.
With ministers having agreed on ETCS standards as Australia’s digital train control pathway, finding a national approach to ensure interoperability of signaling systems between the different networks is a matter of urgency.
Key takeaways from the forum:
• ETCS is not just about technology, it’s about operational and organisational transformation.
• Harmonising operating rules and ensuring national alignment is critical.
• Stick to proven standards.
• Engage users early and keep them involved throughout the design and implementation process.
Sverre Kjenne, Managing Director of the ERTMS User Group, told the forum that the ETCS rollout in Europe had been slowed by a “jungle of versions”. The lesson? Standardise everything possible.
Australia is now moving towards greater standardisation. The new approach to rail governance includes a revamped Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board as the new Australian Rail Industry Standards Organisation (ARISO) to be Australia rail’s industry-led standards development body alongside the NTC, with the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) playing a key assurance role.
The details are being worked out with governments and industry through the National Rail Action Plan. As NTC Chair Carolyn Walsh noted that at the forum, this is a big step forward, but Australia is well on track with a shared commitment to getting digital train control right.
NTC at AusRail
Carolyn and our CEO Michael Hopkins were kept busy at AusRAIL this year talking through this landmark national rail reform and how new national governance arrangements will drive interoperability, harmonised standards and a more productive, safer rail system.
A new direction for rail governance
The NTC held a workshop on the first day of AusRAIL bringing Michael and Carolyn together with the heads of ARISO, Alan Fedda, ONRSR, Natalie Pelham, and the Australasian Railways Association, Caroline Wilkie, to unpack changes to Australia’s governance and standards development.
Under the new rail governance model, ARISO and ONRSR are stepping into bigger roles and being asked to take a stronger approach to bring networks into alignment, helping the industry operate as one interoperable system.
The panel discussion, guided by Carolyn, focused on what this new approach will look like and ARISO’s role as the new standards setting body.
Alan explained that one of the biggest challenges to improving rail’s interoperability is lifting industry’s adoption of harmonised national standards.
ARISO is now working with the NTC, ONRSR, the ARA and industry to build a standards prioritisation framework that clearly shows why each standard is needed and how it will contribute to safety, innovation, harmonisation and economic benefits.
It is also strengthening its assurance processes to make sure the standards it develops are practical, technically sound and easy for industry to adopt. And it plans to work closely with industry to help them prepare for the changes ahead.
“We’re putting real rigour behind what we’re working on and we’re doing it collectively,” Alan said.
The panel all agreed that to achieve all this, it is critical that ARISO is correctly funded.
Natalie highlighted that while ONRSR has traditionally focused on safety, the new governance model will broaden its role to support interoperability and help lift productivity where it connects to safety. ONRSR is now working with industry to flesh out what this expanded role will look like in practice.
Caroline added that the rail sector is now ready for more centralisation and clearer direction. Achieving better efficiency and cost-effectiveness will require infrastructure managers and operators to play a more active role in standards development, she said.
Deploying ETCS across city and regional environments
Interoperability and the ETCS rollout were key topics at AusRAIL and Carolyn kicked off the conversation during a panel discussion with Raquel Rubalcaba, Acting Deputy Secretary Infrastructure, projects and Engineering, Transport for NSW, Wayne Johnson, CEO Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARCT) , and Stephen Lemon the NTC’s Executive Director, Rail Systems & Operations Reform. Together they explored how to roll out ETCS technologies across Australia in the most cost-effective and productive way.
The panel stressed that careful planning, proportionate deployment, and outcome-focused priorities are essential for a cost-effective rollout and to ensure Australia gets the maximum safety and productivity benefits of these new digital signalling technologies.
A key takeaway: one size doesn’t fit all. ETCS fitment must deliver maximum benefits across very different urban and non-urban environments. Sydney’s requirements differ greatly from remote regions like the Nullarbor Plain, where full ETCS 2 functionality would be prohibitively expensive.
“It’s about configuring the technology in a way that’s proportionate to the operating environment, the level of service, and the requirements,” said Stephen, noting that configuration is very different from customisation, which needs to be avoided as it causes escalation of cost and the risk of non-interoperability.
Determining priorities - where to fit first and which trains to equip - requires careful planning and a national approach. Critical routes where drivers cross borders needs a higher priority, Raquel said, adding that it comes down to getting a clear, nationally-recognised understanding of what we want the outcomes to be.
Wayne emphasised that for ARTC the rollout is part of a wider program to get greater alignment of its networks to help its customers. This needs to be managed from a broader transport perspective taking in the full ecosystem, not just infrastructure, he said.
While all agreed that it’s important not to rush the rollout process, Raquel warned that technology advancements are “moving at an incredible rate” and delays could mean expensive re-work.
Establishing the new governance and mandatory standards needed to ensure national consistency and alignment won’t happen overnight. In the interim, with ETCS deployments well underway in New South Wales and Queensland, networks are relying on informal collaboration to avoid a digital break of gauge and provide certainty for future rail investments.
The future of rail
We were proud to see our Commissioner and Australia’s Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Jim Betts, give AusRAIL’s keynote address where he provided a strategic framing for the rail sector over the next decade. Jim argued that Australia needs an equivalent transformation in freight rail to match its recent mass-transit boom, warning that without significant mode shift, road congestion will erode national productivity.
To achieve this, we need a national investment plan, continued government collaboration and significant funding of projects like Inland Rail and the terminals at Moorebank and Beveridge, he said. To rally and shape this, industry needs to find common cause through its peak bodies like the ARA and Freight on Rail Group.
“When government hears a cacophony of competing voices all arguing over different things, they can safely ignore those voices. But when there is a unified position by industry, it's a lot harder to do nothing,” he said.
Help shape Australia’s first mandatory rail standards
The deadline for submissions to help draft Australia’s first mandatory rail standards will close on Wednesday, 3 December.
Getting mandatory standards in place is a major step toward ensuring interoperability across the national network.
The NTC is developing two initial standards to support the rollout of European Train Control System (ETCS) technology across the NNI:
- Digital train technology (ETCS Trackside) – a standard setting out the trackside/infrastructure requirements to ensure ETCS compatibility across the NNI
- A single on-board interface for drivers and crew (ETCS Onboard) – a standard specifying the requirements for on-board train fitment to ensure ETCS compatibility across the NNI.
If you have the expertise to contribute to drafting these historic standards, tender documents are now available on our website
A feedback report from our discussion paper Digital Train Control Technology (DTCT) Interoperability Requirements Assessment can be found here.