Rail: Better contingency management one year after Rastatt incident

Due to an incident near the German city of Rastatt one year ago, on 12 August 2017, a highly used rail track section was closed for all traffic for nearly two months. The section is part of the Rhine-Alpine rail freight corridor and connects the ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp to Switzerland and Italy, it is one of the busiest rail freight routes in the EU. Since alternative routes were limited in capacity and by interoperability, the incident led to very significant financial losses and was detrimental to rail freight.

The European Commission swiftly reacted to this incident and gathered key stakeholders to find European solutions, quickly establishing measures to mitigate such incidents more effectively in the future.

The resulting Handbook for International Contingency Management describes standards that will - in case of an international disruption - allow for the continuation of rail traffic at the highest possible level. It assures better information on the status of the disruption, on actions taken, on alternatives and on traffic flow impacts.