The IRSE International Technical Committee, or ITC, produced their first report more than ten years ago. In this first report the fundamentals of safety appreciation procedures as a basis for Cross-Acceptance were addressed. In the meantime CENELEC has produced a number of European norms for safety applications within the railway industry and some CENELEC safety standards for railway signalling are now circulated and partly in force for IEC standards in the context of globalisation. Further experience shows that the processes for the approval of safety cases and the associated certification of applicable equipment are still not unified within Europe and thus Cross-Acceptance is still not common practice. Within some countries Cross-Acceptance is already practised, even before the introduction of EN 50126, EN 50128, and EN 50129 and the interoperability directives, whereas elsewhere the introduction of a system already approved in another country requires an almost completely new approach to the safety case. Another issue seems to be with the documentation, which ranges from the extremes of requiring as much as possible, to as little as practicable. The IRSE wishes to encourage a culture of new signalling technology application which can be recognised internationally by manufacturers, safety authorities, consultants and railway operators, and to develop processes whereby usage in national railway organisations is made much easier in order to achieve rapid deployment. The sixth report produced by the ITC has examined current (cross-) acceptance processes in various countries to establish both the strengths and weaknesses that exist, and then to set down a best practice ‘code of conduct’ by which countries should be encouraged to operate in the future. The report should be a practical help, giving the reader an insight into what is required and the pitfalls that can be encountered. It is intended for use by safety authorities, operators and suppliers and seeks to achieve common ground. It should also be seen as a guide and to provide a way forward for the design and installation of new signalling systems within a realistic approval process.