Technical regulations

Regulatory documents for railway subsystems

The different European railway administrations have regulatory documents that establish criteria for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of all railway subsystems, as well as others that set out the technical requirements that products to be installed in the various railway networks must meet.

Adif has a process for drafting and approving these regulatory documents based on technical working groups, made up of experts on the different subjects being developed from Adif and Adif AV, which meet under the umbrella of the Regulatory Committee.

Main sections

Technical Regulations Database

The Regulatory Committee is the executive body, made up of members from both entities, responsible for approving technical regulatory documents; it generally meets every six months.

All documents approved by the Regulatory Committee, as well as repealed documents, are made available to stakeholders on the Technical Regulations (NTW) app. This guarantees the principles of transparency, universal accessibility and equal treatment promoted by current legislation.

News

28th Session of the Adif and Adif AV Regulatory Committee

At the “ordinary” session held on December 12, 2024, a series of documents pertaining to different specialities and subsystems were approved: infrastructure, track, energy, control-command and signalling, and other documents transversal to all specialities (general).

Special mention should be made of the incorporation of seven new documents into the set of regulations and the repeal of a total of 20 documents (19 relating to the track speciality and another belonging to the energy subsystem).

Many of the documents that have been modified, or those that have been comprehensively revised, giving rise to a new edition of documents that already existed in the regulatory framework, are the result of the work entrusted to infrastructure managers in Order TMA/135/2023 approving the railway instructions for the design and construction of the infrastructure and energy subsystems (IFI and IFE, according to their names in Spanish).

Taking into account the documents approved and repealed in this last meeting, the number of documents revised and considered to be adapted to the new railway instructions is set at 75. Progress is being made in this task, although there is still a long way to go.

To guarantee the principles of transparency, universal accessibility and equal treatment, and to maximize the dissemination of the standards, technical specifications, price tables, etc., that are approved at Committee meetings, Adif makes the Adif Technical Regulations and Price Database available to stakeholders.

Adif Price Base (APB 2025)

Following approval of the standard by the Regulatory Committee NAG 9-0-0.1 "Guide to changes in the units of the Adif Price Base", 1st Edition, and the approval of the new prices for labor, materials and machinery by the Price Update Committee on January 27, 2025, the new version of the APB was published on February 7, 2025, which will remain in force as of this date. 

From this moment onward, the use of APB 2025 becomes effective for all projects that begin drafting from this day forward, and for those that deliver an initial design to the Supervision Department on or after May 7, 2025. Projects delivered before this date may incorporate the new prices at the request of the Contract Manager, although they are not mandatorily applicable.

Consultation phase

This phase includes proposals for new documents, new or modified versions of existing regulatory documents.

The purpose of the public consultation phase, which lasts 30 calendar days, is to collect, study and evaluate all the suggestions and contributions to the regulatory documents before being sent for approval from the Regulatory Committee at Adif and Adif Alta Velocidad.

Documentos en fase de consulta:

During the stipulated period, in order to submit comments about the draft(s), you need to complete the PDF form and attach the scanned file via the mailbox shown below:

To receive notifications about open consultation phases of Adif technical regulations

Composición de imágenes con infraestructura, señalizacion, electrificación y un tren auscultador de Adif
 
Adif assumes no commitment to third parties with these notifications. Adif exclusively guarantees the principle of transparency through the publication of drafts in the consultation phase at www.adif.es

Adif Price Base (APB)

In accordance with current Law 9/2017 on public sector contracts, the Administration must ensure that the budgets for the contracts it enters into are in line with market prices. Moreover, Order FOM/3317/2010, of 17 December, approving the Instruction on specific measures to improve efficiency in the execution of public works for railway, road and airport infrastructures of the Ministry of Development, establishes the need to update reference pricing on an annual basis. In order to comply with the above, Adif makes available the following information regarding the Adif and Adif AV Price Base:

The Adif Price Base (APB), integrates the prices of the work units, which serve as a reference for the preparation of projects, works and maintenance of the General Interest Railway Network managed by Adif and Adif AV in the different railway specialities.

Through the Price Base Viewer the prices of all the units that make up the APB can be viewed.
The APB is applicable to all Adif railway subsystems, each of them associated with its corresponding module. The approved criteria, the modifications and particularities of each module are described in standard NAG 9-0-0.1 "Guide to changes in the units of the Adif price base".

Adif's Specific Technical Specifications

Adif's Specific Technical Specifications (STS) accompany the work units, giving general information on each one in terms of its description, execution and measurement conditions, and payment. This document must be tailored to each project.

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