During the CEO Summit 2022 held in Vienna, joint declarations on Ukraine and railway digitalisation were signed.
Krzysztof Mamiński – CEO of PKP S.A. and UIC Chairman took part in the annual summit of European railways CEOs (CEO Summit 2022) as well as François Davenne, the UIC Director General. The event was held on 8-9 July in Vienna and was kindly hosted by Andreas Matthä - CEO of ӦBB. About 30 heads of European railways participated in the event.
Two important declarations were signed during this event: the first being “a commitment by the European railway sector to support Ukrainian Railways (UZ)”, and the second on “Digitalisation in the Railway Sector”.
Mr François Davenne, the UIC Director General, signed both declarations on behalf of UIC.
On supporting Ukrainian railways, Mr Davenne stated that UIC is happy to continue its work under the UIC Task Force, which meets regularly in order to assist UIC member companies, partner associations, and organisations in tackling the challenges arising from this humanitarian crisis. UIC is also in regular contact with EC-DGMOVE regarding the platform recently created to facilitate grain exports from Ukraine through railways.
UIC is also active on several projects that support the digital revolution currently underway in the railway sector, fostering a modal shift and subsequently mitigating the effects of global warming and climate change. UIC contributed to the declaration by highlighting the importance of two UIC projects: FRMCS and OSDM. UIC is in charge of developing FRMCS, the Future Railway Mobile Communication System, which will gradually replace GSM-R and use the new 5G communication standard. UIC is also responsible for developing OSDM, the Open Sales Distribution Model, which will be the basis for future railway ticketing. OSDM is a public specification, based on modern software technology and will be able to connect with other modes of transport to facilitate and improve passenger experience.
The digitalisation of freight is also an important part of transforming railways. Encouraged by the Rail Freight Forward (RFF) coalition, UIC is coordinating an initiative designed to establish a digital platform for rail freight which will create an open European digital ecosystem to facilitate seamless interoperable information flows between all rail freight entities. The digital platform will provide central tools for increasing standardisation and help support smaller RUs with limited or no IT in becoming TAF TSI compliant.
The declarations are available here:
