The Digirail project is bringing changes to the railway sector, with requirements for new kinds of expertise. The EKA track section to be built on the Lielahti-Rauma/Pori track is the first ETCS track section to be implemented in Finland for commercial train traffic. EKA will be introduced in 2027 and it will be the first contact with ETCS for many rail workers, so the rail operations staff must be trained in the change. The Digirail Sector Training team is responsible for determining how this will be done.
The work of the team responsible for providing training to the sector organisations began last year with an analysis of the EKA training needs. This included a survey of both the current level of competence for professional tasks and the future needs generated by the ETCS system changes on the EKA track section (the abbreviation stems from the Finnish words “Ensimmäinen Kaupallinen Rataosa”, meaning the first commercial track section). The professional groups identified as the most significant with regard to the change were traffic management, the operators and the safety equipment maintenance operators.
Participants in the interviews and workshops mainly included experts working in the Digirail project, but sector professionals from outside of the project were also invited to the interviews for charting the current expertise level.
“I believe that at the latest in the workshops many people realised that the ETCS will bring the rail industry professionals lots of new things to absorb,” says Jaana Koivuniemi, the expert in charge of the analysis work.
A change involving the entire sector must address the different needs of the sector organisations
At the end of April 2024, representatives from the sector organisations were invited to participate in training model workshops at the Digirail project office. The aim of the workshops was to engage with sector organisations in order to address the needs of different types of organisations in the training models to be selected.
“Digirail is a significant investment in rail transport, so interaction with different operators is essential,” says Jari Ruotsalainen, Manager, Team Leader for the Sector Training team.
Some organisations may be able and willing to train their organisation themselves as long as the organisation’s instructors receive the necessary information during instructor training sessions. For some organisations, training acquired as a purchased service may be a better option.
“We are prepared to offer different training model options for different professional groups, so that the railway sector operators have the necessary skills and knowledge to operate on an ETCS track,” Ruotsalainen says.
Decisions on training models related to the EKA track section will be made at the end of 2024 and at the beginning of 2025, as soon as there has been sufficient discussion with the organisations on the impact of the training models.