For decades, the European Union has been building a single market, yet one of the continent’s key transport systems remains technologically fragmented. Only around 10% of the Trans-European railway network is equipped with the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), while completing its deployment is estimated to require a further €75–85 billion.
ERTMS was designed specifically to replace different national signalling systems and enable trains to operate across the railway networks of different countries without technical barriers. However, a new European Commission study published on October 1 revealed a paradox: the implementation of a common European standard itself remains largely dependent on national and project-specific solutions.
According to Alona Lebedieva, owner of the Ukrainian industrial and investment group Aurum Group, the problem lies not only in the cost of the technology itself but also in how the market for its deployment is organised.
“When separate technical configurations are developed for a common standard in each country, some of the economies of scale are simply lost. Instead of producing a standardised product, manufacturers have to adapt their solutions to individual projects time and again, while customers end up paying for this complexity,” she notes.
One Standard – Dozens of Implementation Variations
The European Commission study identifies project-specific requirements, national regulations, integration with outdated signalling systems and complex approval procedures as some of the main reasons behind the high cost of ERTMS.
As a result, suppliers often develop customised solutions instead of using standardised products. Another challenge is vendor lock-in: the extensive use of solutions specific to a particular manufacturer makes it more difficult to switch suppliers later and weakens competition.
The problem also affects rolling stock. A study of the cost of onboard ERTMS equipment showed that between 2018 and 2022, the average cost of equipping a single vehicle effectively doubled: retrofit costs increased from approximately €450,000 to €900,000, while upgrading an already installed system rose from €200,000 to €400,000.
In other words, the problem is not that Europe lacks a common technological standard. The standard already exists. The difficulty arises from the large number of variations in its practical implementation.
The EU Wants to Move from Individual Projects to Large-Scale Deployment
On September 28, during Connecting Europe Days 2026 in Brussels, the European Commission, railway industry representatives and infrastructure operators discussed the so-called ERTMS Deal – a transition from the current fragmented approach towards a more standardised and industrialised deployment of the system.
The recommendations of the new study include gradually phasing out legacy national Class B systems, simplifying engineering rules and authorisation procedures, expanding the use of modern digital tools and standardising technical solutions.
According to Alona Lebedieva, the underlying logic is essentially the same as in industrial manufacturing: scale begins to generate cost savings only when the product is genuinely standardised.
If every country or infrastructure operator requires its own configuration, the benefits of serial production disappear. Standardised solutions, by contrast, allow manufacturers to increase production volumes, simplify maintenance and create genuine competition among suppliers.
€85 Billion Is Part of a Much Larger Modernisation Effort
The issue of ERTMS is becoming even more important in the context of the EU’s plans to develop high-speed railways.
The European Commission estimates that completing the Trans-European high-speed rail network by 2040 will require approximately €345 billion in infrastructure investment alone. At the same time, new railway tracks will not, by themselves, create a unified railway area if rolling stock still has to be adapted to different national traffic management systems.
This is why ERTMS is effectively infrastructure within infrastructure – a technological layer without which full cross-border railway interoperability is impossible.
The EU is already preparing an updated European ERTMS Deployment Plan. The high-speed rail development plan also envisages strengthening the role of the European Union Agency for Railways, particularly in reducing excessive national rules and simplifying authorisation procedures.
For Ukraine, This Is Already a Practical Issue
This discussion is directly relevant to Ukraine as well.
During the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 in Gdańsk, it was announced that approximately €1 million in grant funding had been secured to prepare for the implementation of ERTMS on Ukraine’s railway network in cooperation with the Swedish state-owned development finance institution Swedfund International AB.
The funds are intended to support a preliminary feasibility study and the preparation of a step-by-step plan for deploying the system. Swedfund itself identifies the transition to ERTMS as part of the modernisation of Ukraine’s railway network in line with TEN-T standards and its further integration into the EU transport network.
Alona Lebedieva emphasises that it is important for Ukraine to take European experience into account from the very beginning of this process.
“Ukraine has the advantage that much of this system has yet to be built. It is therefore important to focus on the most standardised solutions from the outset and avoid introducing into new infrastructure the very fragmentation that Europe is now trying to eliminate,” she notes.
The €75–85 billion estimate illustrates the scale of the challenge that Europe still faces. However, the new European Commission study also demonstrates that the issue is not simply about finding additional funding.
Some of the costs are generated by the complexity of the deployment system itself. If the EU succeeds in moving away from dozens of individual configurations towards a more standardised industrial model, a unified European railway system will become not only more technologically interoperable but also less expensive to modernise.