For many decades now, the rail traffic in Europe has been operating from an increasingly defensive position. More innovative answers are needed to regain market share for the railways and to improve significantly the role in the so-called multimodal allocation of transport functions. An essential initiative is the European Rail Transport Management System (ERTMS), which includes railway-specific telecommunication as well as signalling. The effort is to promote an improved and internationally interoperable use of rail transport capacities by, for example, demand-based train headway and reliable and cost-effective operation of the acknowledged safe transport medium ´railway´. Rail traffic on high-speed/high performance lines as well as conventional traffic (passengers and freight) will gain substantial advantages from the introduction of ERTMS/ETCS operation. With identical goals, the cost-value ratio of automation investment is typically much better compared to that of construction works. Analyses and the existing project-practice allow the conclusion that there exists an optimal mix of the different ERTMS/ETCS application levels for practically each migration scenario (trackside and onboard). Finally the necessary technical solutions are more and more mature and widely commercial available, so that accelerated installations are possible.