The Agency actively participates in the working group of regulatory bodies for railway transport, ENRRB, as part of European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, DG-MOVE.
In November 2011 the Agency became a full-fledged member of the association of independent regulatory bodies for railway transport IRG-Rail.
ENRRB
ENRRB (European Network of Rail Regulatory Bodies) is a working group of regulatory bodies for regulating the market of railway transport services, headed by the European Commission, namely its Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport DG-MOVE.
The working group includes representatives from the regulatory bodies of European Union member states, countries of the European Economic Area and EU candidate member state. At its meetings the group mostly discusses the issues of the liberalization of the services market in railway transport, which includes legal and economic questions related to access to railway infrastructure, access to additional and auxiliary services required for providing freight and passenger transportation services in railway transport, and with setting and charging usage fees. At these meetings the representatives of the European Commission provide information related to the preparation of the new or a reform of the existing legislation pertaining to railway transport. Members also exchange experience and best practices at numerous workshops.
Besides the annual meetings with the European Commission working group members also attend the annual RNE conference, organized by the association of railway infrastructure administrators Rail Net Europe. At this conference, representatives of Rail Net Europe provide working group members and the European Commission with information on their activities in the development of programming tools, such as CIS, PCS and TIS, which are aimed at railway infrastructure administrators and railway transport carriers.
IRG-Rail
IRG – Rail (Independent Regulators’ Group – Rail) is an association of independent regulatory bodies in railway transport, which was founded in June 2011 at the Hague at the initiative of regulatory bodies of Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. IRG-Rail was founded with a desire for increased cooperation and information exchange between regulatory bodies of EU member states, which has become especially important with the introduction of international freight railway corridors.
A condition for membership in the association is that the regulatory bodies have a legal and financial independence. Considering that at the time IRG-Rail was founded the Republic of Slovenia did not yet meet the conditions regarding full independence, it was only able to operate in the association as a candidate, which allowed full participation in the association's working groups. By transferring the regulatory body authority from the Ministry of Transport to the Agency, the Republic of Slovenia fulfilled all the formal conditions for full-fledged membership in the association.
There are 4 working groups operating as part of IRG-Rail:
- working group for access to railway infrastructure,
- working group on usage fee for use of railway infrastructure,
- working group for monitoring the railway services market, and
- working group for monitoring the development of the European legislation on railway transport.