Eress: A New Era for Railway Energy: Promoting efficiency, fairer billing with standards and onboard meters

Since the dawn of the railway era, the industry has relied heavily upon guesswork and old formulas to calculate the energy consumed by trains. In many countries, train operators are invoiced based on an estimate for the amount of energy consumed, using simple measurements that involve the weight of the train and how far it travels in a single run. Invoices are often exorbitant, and train operators have no way of knowing whether they are accurate or even close to real consumption. But with the ever-increasing demand for cross-border rail transport and the complexity of both national and international standards, a more up-to-date means of measuring exact energy consumption has become a necessity. The development of the railway sector and collaboration in diverse fields like energy is key for the sector's survival. One clear need in Europe is the standardization of railway energy data. Infrastructure managers must use standardized formats and data content to share data and correctly bill train operators across Europe. To overcome this problem, seven countries have banded together to guide train operators through the process of equipping their rolling stock with onboard energy meters. This collective, known as Eress, promotes energy collaboration via the Erex IT system.