January 16 (SeeNews) - UK-based engineering consultancy Ricardo Certification said it was contracted by Serbia's Infrastruktura Zeleznice Srbije to provide Notified Body services for the upgrade of the rail line connecting Serbia's Belgrade to Hungary's Budapest.
Ricardo Certification will be in charge of performing as Notified Body for the 184 km-long section of the railway in Serbia, the company said in a statement last week.
"The work will be carried out using our accredited Notified Body processes, and our team of expert assessors verified as possessing the required level of competence. We look forward to working with Infrastructure of Serbian Railways through to the completion of this section of the high-speed rail upgrade," the business manager of Ricardo Certification, Michiel Vernooij, said.
Following a decision by the Serbian rail authorities to adopt the European Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs), a Notified Body is required to act as an independent third-party, conducting verification activities during its planning, construction and testing, Ricardo Certification noted.
The upgrade project will increase the maximum speed of trains on the railway to up to 200 km/h. In this way, the direct journey time between the two European capitals will be substantially reduced to around three hours. The full extent of the line will be developed in three stages, with work in Serbia recently commenced.