IRJ at UIC ERTMS world conference Brussels. The path towards an interoperable version of ETCS Level 3 suitable for use in Europe still appears to be some way off.

SWISS railfreight operator BLS Cargo reported an 11% increase in traffic last year with a total of 18,225 trains operated compared with 16,486 in 2014.

THE Chinese city of Qingdao has launched passenger operations on the city's inaugural light rail line, the 9km link from Qianwangtuan to Chenyang Wholesale Market.

NEW Zealand's national rail operator, KiwiRail, has posted a net loss of $NZ 16.2m ($US 10.94m) for the six months to December 31 2015. This is an increase of $NZ 9.4m compared with the same period in 2014.

LOS Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) opened a $US 1bn 18.5km extension to the Gold Line light rail line on March 5 which also marked the entry into service of the first of a fleet of 21 LRVs supplied by Kinkisharyo.

STRATHCLYDE Partnership for Transport (SPT), which operates the Glasgow Subway, has awarded a £200m contract to a consortium of Stadler Bussnang and Ansaldo STS for the supply of 17 driverless trains and signalling.

FEMERN, which is responsible for implementing the 18km road-rail tunnel between Denmark and Germany, has been mandated by the Danish political parties behind the project to appoint the preferred bidders for the three main tunnel contracts.

THE state government of New South Wales (NSW) has announced a $A 275m ($US 203.5m) investment in the Sydney Trains Operations Centre, a centralised train control centre for the Sydney Trains suburban rail network.

IRJ at the UIC ERTMS world conference Brussels. The application of automatic train operation (ATO) in conjunction with ETCS Level 2 is being pioneered on a new line project in Mexico, well ahead of its adoption in Europe.