The ongoing crisis in European energy markets, triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine will have a significant impact on all sectors. Despite its energy-efficiency rail transportation is no exemption. The European railway sector, represented by the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), together with European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) call upon the European Commission and Member States to develop a strategy which protects the European Union’s modal shift objectives and ensures uninterrupted affordable energy supply for rail transportation.
The EU Green Deal climate neutrality target foresees a stronger role for railways, as defined in the modal shift goals of the EU Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. Rail is indeed the closest mode to achieve net zero emissions before the mid-century. In addition to mitigating climate change, railways are also playing a vital role in addressing other global challenges, such as travel of refugees and grain transportation from Ukraine. Nevertheless, rail’s modal share is at serious risk due to energy price developments. Energy amounts to approximately 10-20% of rail undertakings’ cost base and traction electricity prices in rail freight and passenger doubled for the period 2021 and 2022 with some countries even experiencing a tenfold price increase.
To establish and maintain compliance, railway entities must implement the cybersecurity measures defined by the NIS Directive Cooperation Group, which are grouped in four categories:
Governance and ecosystem – Information system security governance and risk management
Protection – identity and access management, physical security
Defense – Crisis management and business continuity
Resilience – Incident response and management, detection
“For the past years, a lot of focus has been put on the digitalization of infrastructure and services addressing market needs and new ways of working,” says Giannis Kostakis, ICT Security Consultant at European Union Agency for Railways (ERA). “Similar to other sectors across the European Union, technology nowadays plays a vital role, introducing new opportunities together with novel challenges.” Cybersecurity is a key requirement to enable railways to deploy and exploit the full extent of digital technology.
Cybersecurity challenges
While the railway sector strives to implement the required cybersecurity measures to defend against cyber-attacks exploiting vulnerabilities, they are met with various challenges that hinder their efforts. Overall, the ENISA report notes that “railway stakeholders must strike a balance between operational requirements, business competitiveness and cybersecurity, while the sector is undergoing digital transformation.”
The main cybersecurity challenges highlighted in the report are the following:
-Low cybersecurity awareness. Staff awareness of the need for cybersecurity remains quite low.
-Conflicts between safety and cybersecurity requirements. For each security patch and update, safety teams need to ensure that safety mechanisms remain intact. This requires extra time and money. Additionally, the report highlights that it appears to be difficult to deal simultaneously with safety and security requirements, which sometimes overlap or contradict each other.
-Digital transformation of critical services. Most railway companies are undergoing digital transformation and a wide range of IT and connected IoT devices are introduced. However, these components are not properly procured, identified and managed, creating new vulnerabilities and expanding the threat landscape.
-Supply chain risks. “Remote access and interconnected systems have increased attack surface and dependence on supply chain attacks,” say the experts, because railway entities are heavily reliant on a wide variety of third-party suppliers and providers for system updates, patch management, and lifecycle management. This can increase the challenge of standardization and the ability to define and implement baseline cybersecurity measures for all systems. Moreover, third-party suppliers are not covered by the provisions of the NIS Directive, so they have less stringent statutory requirements to apply cybersecurity.
Legacy systems. “Railway Infrastructure consists of various complex hardware systems and components. Some of them can be regarded as legacy systems. Keeping those critical systems updated can be a challenge. Cybersecurity requirements complexity. Railway entities need to comply both with the NIS Directive and national security requirements, making compliance a time consuming and resource intensive effort. It also highlights the need for cybersecurity requirements harmonization across all EU members and the requirement for the development of a railway specific NIS profile.

Mongolia long-waited coal railway comes online

Mongolia's Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait railway was officially put into operation on September 9, 2022, marking a new era for the country to export mineral products to neighboring China.
The 233km rail line, connecting the country's largest coalfield Tavan Tolgoi and Gashuun Sukhait border crossing with China, was the first self-constructed heavy-haul railway in the country.
At the ceremony to mark the launch of the rail service, Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh said the railway is the one to bring the country development, investment and opportunity.
The railway has the capacity to export 30-50 million tonnes of coal to China annually, according to Tavantolgoi Railway LLC, the state agency that built the line.
The cost of coal transport is expected to be reduced significantly. Compared with $47/t when coal is delivered by trucks, the cost of shipping coal from Tavan Tolgoi to Ganqimaodu border crossing (on the Chinese side) slumped to $12/t via the railway, Mongolian media Montsame reported.
The railway's construction started in 2012 but suspended until 2018, when Tavantolgoi Railway LLC was formed to proceed with the project. Ulaanbaatar-based Bodi International served as the general contractor. With the railway, coal production and exports of Mongolia are expected to increase remarkably. In 2021, the country's coal exports to China totaled 14.56 million tonnes, accounting for 93% of the country's total exports.
The figure declined 46.5% from a year ago due to epidemic.