ProRail awards Ricardo the Certification ISA, AsBo, and NoBo Services for the ERTMS Noordelijke Lijnen Project

ERTMS Infrastructure Certification for Ricardo

Dutch rail infrastructure manager ProRail has awarded Ricardo Certification a contract to provide Independent Safety Assessor (ISA), Assessment Body (AsBo), and Notified Body (NoBo) services for the ERTMS Noordelijke Lijnen project.

The ERTMS Noordelijke Lijnen (ENL) project is one of the first ERTMS rollout projects in the Netherlands. Ricardo Certification won the public tender and will assess both the safety and technical dossiers for TSI compliance (Technical Specifications for Interoperability), generically and specifically for each track section.

The Noordelijke Lijnen were added to the scope of the ERTMS Program (European Rail Traffic Management System) in 2021. This project involves replacing approximately 270 km of railway in the provinces of Groningen and Friesland, currently using the ATB NG safety system (Automatic Train Protection – New Generation), with ERTMS Level 2 Baseline 3.

Aschwin van der Lugt, Project Manager ERTMS Noordelijke Lijnen, ProRail: “The implementation of ERTMS on the Noordelijke Lijnen is a crucial step in modernizing our railway network. We look forward to working with Ricardo Certification, who will use their extensive expertise and experience to ensure the safety and reliability of this project.”

Jeroen Zuidervaart, Sales Director Europe, Ricardo: “We are proud to have been selected by ProRail for this important project. Our role as ISA, AsBo, and NoBo allows us to leverage our deep, international knowledge of ERTMS in both rolling stock and infrastructure to contribute to the successful implementation of this safety system on the Noordelijke Lijnen.”

Aschwin van der Lugt, ProRail (right) and Jeroen Zuidervaart, Ricardo (left) mark the start of the project.

International Experience

Ricardo Certification has extensive experience and expertise in assessing the safety and technical compliance of railway systems. Internationally, the organization has contributed to numerous ERTMS and ETCS projects in countries such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Serbia, Sweden, and Italy. These projects range from large-scale implementations to specific technical assessments.

What Will Ricardo Certification do as ISA, AsBo, and NoBo?

• Independent Safety Assessor (ISA): Ricardo Certification will independently assess the safety of the ERTMS system, separate from the design and development team. This includes evaluating the safety tasks of the design and development team, conducting detailed safety analyses, validating safety evidence, and identifying potential risks.
  
  
• Assessment Body (AsBo): Ricardo Certification will perform conformity assessments according to the Common Safety Method (CSM) for risk evaluation and assessment. This involves assessing the safety tasks of the design and development team with a more formal approach, establishing technical and operational safety requirements, and implementing mitigating safety control measures. This assessment covers both the design and development process and the final implementation of the system.
  
  
• Notified Body (NoBo): Ricardo Certification will verify the compliance of the subsystems specified in the interoperability directive with the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI). For the ENL project, the applicable subsystem is the control and signaling subsystem. Ricardo Certification will conduct a “clause by clause” verification of the detailed requirements in the TSI. This work includes a technical assessment of the evidence of compliance with the TSI during the design phase and the test and commissioning phase. If the system meets the requirements, a certificate will be issued.