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Legal expertise
for the benefit of the railways


Table of Contents

4/22
33rd meeting of the CIM Working Group

The 33rd meeting of the CIM WG was held as a hybrid meeting and was chaired by Cristian Cuenca (DB Cargo) at CIT headquarters in Bern. The meeting prepared important workstream outputs for endorsement by the CIM Committee in March 2023.

Digitalisation of CIT freight products

On the basis of the feedback received from members during the discussion at the 32nd WG CIM meeting, Part A “General” of the CIT Freight Manual (GTM-CIT) was approved in a final vote, as were all the appendices and working sheets. This completes the full digitalisation of all the operational processes in the CIT freight products, which can be presented to the CIM Committee in March 2023 for validation.

In accordance with the decision of the CIM Working Group, the remaining supplements with a bearing on the contents of GTM-CIT but no direct connection with digitalisation will be dealt with at the 34th meeting in June 2023. They are of fundamental importance to the way the processes in GTM-CIT are described at the interface between the various carriage models and customs authorities.

Implementation of the eFTI Regulation and DTLF project

The CIT GS is monitoring work with a view to the impact on its members, and will keep the Executive Committee regularly updated on the opportunities and risks of the project, as well as any impacts on CIT products. Initial insights from economic operators’ data and feedback from individual EU Member States are expected for the DTLF plenary in mid-January 2023 at the earliest. According to the general plan, a finalised version is set to be available in February 2023.

The eFTI-DR (data requirements) working model currently contains more data than expressly required by the eFTI Regulation. This is so that if one day additional data is needed, it will be easier to retrieve it if it already exists than having to create and assign new elements. The compatibility of eFTI data content with existing TAF data also needs to be thoroughly checked. Caution needs to be taken with some of the eFTI data structures – in particular TrainID, wagon number (EVN) and ILU number – since they are presently being created for road transport as a priority.

It is possible for railways’ existing systems, specifically the TAF TSI subsets, to constitute the legal basis for the alternative information exchange between economic operators (RUs) and administration foreseen in the restricted scope of the eFTI Regulation. This was the strategic aim pursued by the railway associations in the project in order to maintain existing data governance  arrangements.

Revision of TAF TSI

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/541 of 26 March 2021 amending Regulation (EU) No 1305/2014 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to “telematics applications for the freight subsystem” was approved on 26 March 2021. TAF TSI thus defines the technical and functional standards for harmonised data interchange between infrastructure managers, railway undertakings and other involved parties. The purpose of TAF TSI is to ensure the efficient exchange of data by laying down the necessary technical framework.

In this context, the CIT GS has worked via the RU/IM Telematics Joint Sector Group (JSG) to have consignment note data included in the new Consignment order message (COM) based on the CIM electronic consignment note and ORFEUS-ECN xml 1.6. This was agreed at the ERA Change control management meeting on 30 November 2022, meaning that with CR 317 (Change Request) it is fully incorporated into TAF TSI version 3.3.0. The CIT GS is pleased with the excellent collaboration with RailData and the JSG in the common interest of the railways.

erik.evtimov(at)cit-rail.org