Today, trains are equipped with up to six different navigational systems. Each is extremely costly and takes up space on-board. A train crossing from one European country to another must switch the operating standards as it crosses the border. All this adds to travel time and operational and maintenance costs.

With trends for privatisation fuelling governmental calls for accountability, now more than ever, operators must be competitive. Railways need to offer speed and convenience, not only for very high speed trains, but for all mainline trains and equally for freight operations.

Following the decision taken by the European Transport minister in December 1989, the EC. embarked upon a project to analyse the problems relating to signaling and train control. At the end of 1990, ERRI created a group of railway experts (A200) to develop the requirements of ETCS. In June 1991, Industry (Eurosig) and Railways (UIC, ERRI A200) agreed the principles of tight co-operation in order to consider the requirement specifications as the base for industrial development.

The project framework included a new on-board equipment based on open computer architecture (EUROCAB), a new discontinuous system for data transmission, (EUROBALISE) and a new continuous transmission system (EURORADIO). At the end of 1993, the EU council issued an Interoperability Directive and a decision was taken to create a structure to define the Technical Specification for Interoperability.

At the beginning of the 4th Framwork Programme, in 1995, the EC defined a global strategy for the further development of ERTMS with the aim to prepare its future implementation on the European Rail Network. The global strategy described in the "Master Plan of Activities" included the development and validation phase. The objective of the validation phase was to perform full scale tests on sites located in different countries (France, Germany and Italy).

In the summer of 1998, Unisig, comprising the European Signaling companies was formed to finalise the specifications. The Class P SRS was delivered on 23rd April 1999. With the final signature on ERTMS specification, Class 1, on 25th April 2000, ERTMS has finally arrived providing substantially higher performance levels for the railways.

Great success has already been achieved to test the interoperability on EMSET and Vienna-Budapest trials. Test Track Italy has carried out trials in 2001. The revised specifications SRS 2.2.2 have been approved in February 2002 and are on the way to be introduced in the Technical Specifications for Interoperability. There are a number of commercial projects at varying stages like the West Coast Main Line, the HSL-Zuid, Rome-Naples, Switzerland, Berlin-Halle-Leipzig, Athens and Madrid - Lleida, that have been awarded and partially financed by the EC.

A joint effort from the European Union and the member states to finance ERTMS/ETCS has been implemented to put in place as quickly as possible the Relevant Net. In 2005, the European Commission initiated a project to study in detail the costs and benefits of six selected corridors in Europe. Karel Vinck has been nominated as European Coordinator to finalise this work by March 2006. UNIFE and its members represent the supply industry in this group.