As early as 1991, the European Rail Research Institute (ERRI) was commissioned by the International Union of Railways (UIC) to undertake initial studies into a new European train control and protection system (project name: A200).

Owing to country-specific requirements, formulating technical and operating specifications for a system acceptable to all participating railways was a long and difficult process which held up development work a number of times.

From 1996 this work was continued by the ERTMS Users Group. The system requirements specification (SRS) sets out the basic technical principles for the functioning of the system to the extent required for technical interoperability. The ETCS standard was ready for series production as of version SRS 2.3.0. However, the system will not be ready for implementation in cross-border applications until development work on the next version (SRS 3.0.0) has been completed around 2009.