Rail Infrastructure Capacity Regulation — provisional political agreement and the knock-on for long-term SPNV contracts
The Capacity Management Regulation — the successor to Regulation (EU) 913/2010 and the capacity chapter of Directive 2012/34/EU — cleared its final trilogue hurdle in early 2026 and is moving toward adoption. Its multi-year capacity-planning regime will bite on SPNV tendering timetables, long-lead rolling-stock orders, and contractual liquidated-damages regimes tied to timetable stability.
The proposal and its state of play
Proposal COM(2023) 443 of 11 July 2023 — the „Capacity Management Regulation“ — would repeal Regulation (EU) 913/2010 on rail freight corridors and replace the capacity-allocation rules currently found in Chapter IV of Directive 2012/34/EU with a single Union instrument. As of February 2026 the file has cleared trilogue with a provisional political agreement and is awaiting formal adoption by the European Parliament and Council.
What changes for capacity allocation
The core shift is multi-year capacity planning. The existing annual working-timetable cycle (one year ahead) is complemented — and for cross-border traffic, partly replaced — by a five-year strategic capacity plan and three-year rolling capacity plans, with European capacity-management structures (the European Network of Infrastructure Managers and the European Coordinator) playing a binding role for international traffic. Priority rules between passenger and freight are recalibrated.
Why this matters for SPNV
Three effects will flow through to SPNV contracts. First, the predictability of timetable paths on which SPNV Verkehrsverträge rely will be reshaped: the guarantee that an operator can run the contracted pattern on day one becomes an artefact of the multi-year plan rather than of the single-year process. Second, liquidated-damages regimes in Verkehrsverträge that peg penalties to timetable deviations need to be re-examined in light of the new rules on capacity rights and their curtailment. Third, long-lead rolling-stock orders — battery-electric and hydrogen multiple-unit programmes with 5–7 year lead times — have a better informational base for matching fleet delivery to the capacity envelope, provided the planning instruments are populated in good time.
What to watch
Two downstream questions will determine how much the new regime bites: the transition regime for contracts concluded before the Regulation applies, and the implementing acts that will define the standard capacity-rights template. German implementation will also need to reconcile the new regime with the existing ERegG charging and capacity chapters and with the Bundesnetzagentur's practice under the Trassenvergabeverfahren.
Where this sits
See the market-access section of the Regulation page for the current framework, and the Fourth Railway Package section for the institutional context that the Capacity Regulation extends.
Last reviewed: 18 April 2026. These notes are not legal advice. See the Disclaimer.