Corridor description
The North Sea - Mediterranean Corridor railway, included in the Core Network Corridor (NSM CNC), is over 6,700 Km long and crosses 6 countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and Ireland.
The NSM CNC stretches from Ireland and the north of the UK through the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France.
The goals are reducing travel times and offering a wider modal choice and better services for passengers and freight.
The NSM CNC includes the following sections:
- Belfast – Dublin – Cork
- Glasgow/Edinburgh – Liverpool/Manchester – Birmingham
- Birmingham – Felixstowe/London/Southampton
- London – Lille – Brussel/Bruxelles
- Amsterdam – Rotterdam – Antwerp – Brussel/Bruxelles – Luxembourg
- Luxembourg – Metz – Dijon – Macon – Lyon – Marseille
- Luxembourg – Metz – Strasbourg – Basel
- Antwerpen/Zeebrugge – Gent – Dunkerque/Lille – Paris
ERTMS deployment on the corridor
There are 6,746.56 km where ERTMS is expected to be deployed in the NSM corridor by 2030, 11% of which are already in operation with ETCS, 87% in operation with GSM-R, ETCS under construction in 5% of the length and GSM-R in 6%. The GSM-R deployment rate in the NSM is one of the highest among the CNCs.
Defining the short term deployment as the length to be deployed by 2023 according to the EDP (1,565.43 km), 49% is in operation while 21% is still under construction. These are good rates relative to the average of the CNCs in the short term.
No section is planned to be deployed in Ireland and the UK by 2023, while all the sections scheduled to be deployed by 2023 in Luxembourg are already in operation.
The percentage of length planned to be operational with ERTMS by 2023 in France that has already been achieved is 29%, but the rest of the lines are under construction.
The rate of short-term deployment in Belgium is 45%.