This Regulation establishes a common safety method (CSM) of supervision of the safety performance after issuing a safety certificate for railway undertakings or a safety authorisation for infrastructure managers as referred to in Annex IV to Regulation (EU) No 1158/2010 and Annex III to Regulation (EU) No 1169/2010 respectively.

National safety authorities shall use this Regulation to perform their supervision activities under Article 16(2)(f) of Directive 2004/49/EC and to advise the Member States on the effectiveness of the safety regulatory framework.

The national safety authority shall develop and implement a supervision strategy and plan(s) outlining how it targets its activities and sets its priorities for supervision as set out in the Annex.

The national safety authority shall collect and analyse information from a variety of sources. It shall use the information collected and the outcomes of supervision for the purposes set out in Article 1.

The national safety authority shall regularly review the strategy and plan or plans in the light of experience, using the information collected and the outcomes of supervision.

The national safety authority shall adopt techniques for supervision activities. These techniques commonly include interviews with people at various levels in an organisation, reviewing documents and records related to the safety management system and examining the safety outcomes of the management system revealed by inspections or related activities.

The national safety authority shall use information gathered during the assessment of a railway undertaking’s or infrastructure manager’s safety management system for the purposes of its supervision of the continued application of their safety management system after issuing the safety certificate or the safety authorisation.

The national safety authority shall also use information gathered during its supervision activities for reassessing a railway undertaking’s or an infrastructure manager’s safety management system prior to the renewal of a safety certificate or safety authorisation.

The national safety authority shall establish and publish decision-making criteria on how it monitors, promotes and where appropriate enforces compliance with the safety regulatory framework. These criteria shall also include non-compliance issues related to the continued application of a safety management system by a railway undertaking or infrastructure manager and to the safety regulatory framework.

The national safety authority shall adopt and publish a procedure to enable railway undertakings and infrastructure managers to submit a complaint on decisions taken during supervision activities, without prejudice to the requirement for a judicial review of those decisions.

National safety authorities involved in the supervision of a railway undertaking operating in more than one Member State shall coordinate their approach to supervision to ensure that the safety management system of the railway undertaking is effective and covers all relevant activities. The coordination activities shall involve agreement on what information to share between national safety authorities in order to ensure a common approach to supervision of the relevant railway undertaking. It shall also include sharing information on the supervision strategy and plan or plans of the national safety authorities concerned, including any relevant outcomes, to enable a joint approach to dealing with non-compliance.

National safety authorities shall develop cooperation arrangements with national investigation bodies, certification bodies for entities in charge of maintenance and other competent authorities in order to share information and to coordinate their response to any failure to comply with the safety-related regulatory framework.