On 5 December 2025, the European Commission launched a Call for Evidence to revise the mandate of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). The aim is to align the Agency’s founding rules with its evolving role and ensure it continues to deliver high levels of rail safety, security and sustainability. The revision will take into account ERA’s expanding responsibilities in safety and interoperability, developments in EU legislation since 2016, and the 2023 Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) package. Overall, the initiative seeks to clarify and update ERA’s legal mandate and strengthen its contribution to rail modernisation, digitalisation and innovation.

The European Passengers’ Federation (EPF) strongly supports ERA’s work, whose mission is “Moving Europe towards a sustainable and safe railway system without frontiers”. Since its establishment in 2004, ERA has made significant progress in strengthening rail safety and interoperability across the EU, and its technical achievements are widely recognised. However, EPF considers that ERA’s mandate should now be clarified and expanded – including extended monitoring and enforcement powers – and supported by adequate financial and human resources, to better serve passengers and deliver EU policy objectives. Key points:

➡️ Strengthening monitoring from a passenger perspective
➡️ Closing the gap: Multi-provider ticketing
➡️ From monitoring to enforcement
➡️ Aligning ambition, mandate and resources.

📄 Read EPF’s full response to the Call for Evidence here.