The System Pillar is the “generic system integrator” for the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail), and the architect of the future EU’s railway system.

Under this role, the System Pillar provides governance, resource, and outputs to support a coherent and coordinated approach to the evolution of the rail system and the development of the system view, based on a formal functional system architecture approach to speed innovation and deployment. The System Pillar brings rail sector representatives under a single coordination body.  To achieve this, the System Pillar will deliver a unified operational concept and a functional, safe and secure system architecture, with due consideration of cyber-security aspects, focused on the European railway network to which Directive 2016/797 applies (i.e. the heavy rail network) as well as associated specifications and/or standards.

Whilst most individual railway systems have views of the future railway architecture, there is no common EU railway system view that is used today.  The railways have traditionally approached systems architecture following a national – even regional –technical approach, leading to a heterogeneous picture at European level. National markets for rail infrastructure and vehicles continue to exist in a way that has been overcome in other modes of transport or sectors. The problem with this is that innovations and changes to the system are very difficult and costly to achieve. Ultimately this undermines the performance and competitiveness of rail transportation.  The purpose of the System Pillar is to improve the European railway system to offer better services for European passengers and freight and to make rail traffic more efficient and less costly. It shall ensure that the evolution of the rail system is based on common operational visions and a layered functional architecture, facilitating the uptake of harmonised, innovative solutions by the sector. The strategic target is the Single European Railway Area (SERA).

The necessary technical specifications are collected in the System Pillar and revised with the sector to feed into the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) and the European standardisation process.

The System Pillar is managed and led by the System Pillar Unit of EU-Rail, under the responsibility of the Executive Director, within the governance established by the Single Basic Act (Council Regulation (EU) No 2021/2085 of 19 November 2021).

The System Pillar is organised in horizontal activities and 5 domain specific tasks.

Engineering Environment Team

The Engineering Environment team includes methods definition (System Engineering Management Plan (SEMP)) and tools provision and training (Polarion, Capella, SysML specification environment) for the whole System Pillar. It monitors the formal quality of the work items, their correct allocation to the tasks and domains, and the consistency, traceability and integrity of the specification and has therefore a central and active role in guiding and supporting other teams.

PRAMS

PRAMS requirements (most of the non-functional requirements) are coordinated centrally. This includes top-level design and assurance of the requirement implementation in the System Pillar Tasks.  The PRAMS team is in charge to define the strategy, policies, methods, and principles to be followed by the other Tasks and Domains during the design activities as well as to coach and support implementation.

Security

Security requirements are defined centrally. This includes security aspects as generic security architecture, threat and risk assessment, security requirements for system under consideration, definition of interfaces to Shared Cybersecurity Services, compliance to standards and legal obligations, and secure program requirements.