Zbornik radova Koridor 10 - Kirilo Savić

3rd International Scientific and Professional Conference
CORRIDOR 10 - a sustainable way of integrations
HARMONIZATION OF TECHNICAL REGULATIONS IN THE AREA OF
RAILWAY TRACK MAINTENANCE
Zdenka Popović, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia
Leposava Milosavljević, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade, Republic of
Serbia
Luka Lazarević, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia
Abstract
The European Union has enacted various legislative measures aimed at achieving the opening up,
integration and harmonization of national railways to form a European railway network. One of the
essential preconditions for the integration of the Serbian Railways with those of the European Union is
to approximate Serbia’s railway regulations and standards to those of the EU. Harmonization of the
technical regulation in the area of railway infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia and the adoption of
the European standards in sector "Railway applications" are in progress. European Committee for
Standardization has created a group of standards EN 13848-Railway applications – Track – Track
geometry quality, which consists of six parts. The objective of creation of this group of standards is
defining a unique approach for the evaluation of track geometry quality of various European railway
infrastructures. The Institute for Standardization of Serbia has adopted and published four out of six
parts of this group of standards. On the other hand, the existing Serbian railway regulations and
logistics concerning track inspection, quality evaluation and correction of track geometry are in
collision with those of the European Union. Solving this problem, which represents the essential
barrier for integrations of the Serbian Railways to the European railway network, requires adoption of
legal and technical frameworks for the application of European standards. Only after solving the given
legal and technical limitations, harmonization of technical regulations in the area of maintenance can
be achieved. On the contrary, harmonized regulations could not be applicable in practice.
Keywords: Railway, track geometry, maintenance, harmonization, technical regulations.
1. INTRODUCTION
The European Union has brought series of regulations and standards in the area of railway
infrastructure. The aim of such activities is to achieve opening, integration and harmonization of
national railway networks with European network [14].
All railway administrations whose lines are a part of the Pan-European Corridor have an interest to
bring their capacity to a higher technical and technological level and to ensure reliable operation of
infrastructure facilities by all European operators. Given the fact that the territory of the Republic of
Serbia is an important part of the railway corridor X (30.89%), it is necessary to harmonize the
parameters of Serbian railway main lines with parameters of European railway network, using modern
technical regulations for the design and maintenance of infrastructure.
In that sense, one of the essential preconditions for the integration of the Serbian Railways with those
of the European Union is to harmonize Serbia’s railway regulations with Directives, Technical
Specifications for Interoperability and applicable technical standards.
Figure 1 shows the current status of harmonization of subordinate Acts for railway infrastructure
maintenance in Serbia.
Belgrade, 2012 50