Samba Ndiaye, Director General of Les Grand Trains de Senegal (GTS), the national Senegalese railway company, visited the UIC HQ on 28 June 2022. He met with Christian Chavanel, the UIC Rail System Director, to discuss joint work between UIC and GTS, focusing on the issues of rolling stock maintenance and security, as well as GTS possibly joining regional projects on rolling stock maintenance and other activities, which are scheduled to start within the African region from 2023.

During his visit Samba Ndiaye held talks with UIC experts on his company’s priorities which included a discussion with Maria Lafont, UIC Senior Advisor and Coordinator African Region, on GTS participation in the ‘African Railway Thursdays’ webinars and annual training sessions organized by UIC Africa; with Marie-Hélène Bonneau, Head of Security Unit, on overall security strategy particularly regarding video surveillance.

Finally, David Sarfatti, Senior Passenger Advisor, presented the UIC digital standards and tools (OSDM (Open Sales and Distribution Model), Flexible Content Barcode and e-Ticket Control Database), followed by a discussion with Samba Ndiaye on establishing a multimodal interoperability standard for ticketing in Senegal.