On 3 December 2025, the 43rd Plenary Meeting of the UIC Statistics Platform was held in Prague and online, at the kind invitation of the Czech National Railway Infrastructure Manager (SŽCZ). The Chair, Roman Štěrba, from SŽCZ, opened the session by thanking all participants for their continued commitment.
The meeting began with the adoption of two key amendments to the Terms of Reference: the platform is now affiliated with the Sustainability Department, and a Vice-Chair position has been introduced. The Plenary then approved the election of Mario Tartaglia, Italian State Railways (FSI), as Chair for the 2026-2027 term, with Štěrba being appointed as Vice-Chair.
Then, the platform’s structure, with four working groups focusing on harmonisation, data collection, indicators, and digital tools, was confirmed. The companies participating in the WGs include the Spanish Railway Infrastructure Manager (ADIF), Trains of Portugal (CP), China Railways (CR), German Railways (DB AG), FSI, Moroccan National Railways (ONCF), National Railways of France (SNCF), SŽCZ, and the Railways of the Slovak Republic (ZSR).
Participation during the 2025 data collection cycle was then presented by Alice Favre, UIC, with response rates for each of the three collections conducted during the year. While participation remained strong, it was slightly lower than in previous years, with efforts ongoing to improve data completeness, as well as quality and consistency, particularly in areas such as staffing, punctuality on the infrastructure manager networks, tractive stock inventories and mileage, and energy consumption by tractive stock, especially the use of electricity and biodiesel versus fossil diesel.
Following a review of the 2025 achievements and the objectives for 2026, the Chair then gave a detailed presentation on Czech railway infrastructure, highlighting electrification and high-speed line projects, as well as sustainability initiatives. This was followed by a presentation from Tartaglia on the progress of Railisa and its integration into FSI’s Strategic Information Management System.
Snejana Markovic Chenais, UIC, then presented the ongoing development of the Rail Sustainability Index (RSi), and its continued development by translating the UN Sustainable Development Goals into railway-specific indicators. Next, Philippe Stefanos, UIC, shared preliminary results from the 2025 energy and emissions data collection, showing steady progress toward the 2030 and 2050 targets. Finally, Lorenzo Franzoni, UIC, provided an overview of the 2024 Global Rail Sustainability Report.
Moreover, institutional partners (Eurostat, International Transport Forum at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (ITF-OECD), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)) shared their latest publications and ongoing initiatives. Collaboration between UIC and these organisations remains key to global data harmonisation.
The day prior to the Plenary, the Steering Committee had met in Prague to review ongoing work and set objectives for 2026 and 2027. The Committee reviewed recent data contributions, confidentiality levels, and upcoming publications, and encouraged earlier submissions to improve the timeliness and quality of statistical outputs. The 2026 work programme was planned, with clear deadlines for data submissions and publications.
The afternoon, a very interesting visit to the National Technical Museum of Prague was organised by SŽCZ.
The next Steering Committee meeting will be hosted by SNCF in Strasbourg in May 2026, and the 44th Plenary Meeting will take place in Paris in November.
All presentations given during the meeting can be found on Statistics Platform extranet.
Data resources:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database
https://stats.oecd.org/
https://unece.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a3b54fd4f3b2454d82240182fbefd090
