Article 23 — Highly utilised and congested railway infrastructure

1. Infrastructure managers shall declare without delay an element of railway infrastructure as being either highly utilised or congested if at least one of the following conditions is met: (a) the utilisation of railway infrastructure capacity has exceeded the thresholds for highly utilised or for congested railway infrastructure during the reference periods set out in Annex II in the previous or the current working timetable period; (b) infrastructure managers are required to partition capacity in strategic capacity planning in accordance with Article 19(4) or Article 20(8); (c) major railway infrastructure works resulting in capacity restrictions scheduled in accordance with Article 11 result in capacity becoming highly utilised or congested. Infrastructure managers shall assess the utilisation of railway infrastructure capacity on the basis of objective, transparent and appropriate procedures and methods. 2. ENIM shall develop a common method on the utilisation of railway infrastructure capacity. That method shall be included in the European framework for capacity management. 3. The declaration referred to in paragraph 1 shall specify the working timetable period and the element of railway infrastructure and the specific time periods to which it relates. 4. Conflicting individual capacity requests submitted for allocation during the working timetable period shall not be a ground for declaring an element of railway infrastructure to be highly utilised or congested unless at least one of the conditions set in paragraph 1 is met. 5. Where an element of railway infrastructure has been declared as highly utilised or congested, the infrastructure manager shall carry out a capacity analysis in accordance with Article 24, unless a capacity-enhancement plan, as provided for in Article 25 and addressing all relevant factors, has been carried out in the five years preceding the declaration of that element of railway infrastructure as highly utilised or congested or is already being implemented. 6. For elements of railway infrastructure declared highly utilised or congested, infrastructure managers shall reserve capacity in the capacity supply plan referred to in Article 20, taking into account the outcome of the capacity analysis referred to in Article 24. 7. Member States shall instruct infrastructure managers to indicate elements of railway infrastructure declared as highly utilised or congested in the register of infrastructure referred to in Article 49 of Directive (EU) 2016/797. 8. The procedures to be followed and the criteria to be used where railway infrastructure is congested shall be set out in the network statement and shall respect any measures and criteria adopted in accordance with Article 27. 9. The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 75 to amend the thresholds for capacity utilisation and the reference periods set out in Annex II where those elements have proven ineffective or have led to major difficulties of implementation, or where the sector has developed new and widely accepted best practices, in order to ensure an efficient management of railway infrastructure capacity on highly utilised and congested railway infrastructure and reflect the operational concerns of infrastructure managers and applicants, taking into account the experience of ENIM, infrastructure managers, applicants and other operational stakeholders, regulatory bodies and the ENRRB in implementing this Article.