National safety Rules

The Railway Safety Directive requires that each Member State notifies the National Safety Rules (NSRs) that are in use in that Member State on a range of issues, as listed in Annex II of the Directive. The purpose of the NSRs is to provide visibility to any potential open access operators from other countries of the rules that they will need to comply with if they want to operate in a particular Member State.

RSSB is responsible for proposing to the Department for Transport those Railway Group Standards (RGSs) that should be notified as NSRs against the Railway Safety Directive. The Department for Transport may need to notify additional legislative requirements in order to ensure the notified NSRs address all of the issues listed in Annex II.

The industry process to be used for the identification and approval of those RGSs which are to be proposed to the Department for Transport as NSRs is set out in part 15 of Issue Two of the Standards Manual. In accordance with this process, RSSB has provided the Department for Transport with a list of those RGSs proposed to be notified as NSRs for the GB mainline railway. The list of RGSs proposed as NSRs will be subject to periodic review as RGSs are developed or withdrawn. Updated lists of the proposed NSRs will be provided to the Department for Transport every two months, in line with RGS catalogue and Periodic Operating Notice (PON) dates.

The European Railway Agency will be publishing the NSRs for all EU Member States once they have completed their review of the most recent notifications. It is not know when this will be.

Please contact Jon Taylor on 020 3142 5601 if you require further information regarding NSRs.