Marc Guigon, the UIC Passenger Director, recently received the gold railway medal of honour, a state decoration bestowed by the French Republic. He was given the medal by François Davenne, the UIC Director General, during a ceremony for having accomplished amazing work over the last 40 years.
Guigon began his career as a locomotive driver at SNCF, where he progressed to manager, working in several different positions in the SNCF maintenance workshops, becoming responsible for around a thousand people. He also initiated the maintenance of the first high-speed trains (Orange TGVs) in the Bischheim workshop near the city of Strasbourg.
He then moved on to being responsible for research on freight activities at SNCF, mainly concerning combined transport, wagons, braking systems, long/heavy trains, and automatic couplers. He applied for several patents concerning container handling.
Guigon also steered the SNCF locomotive tracing project whereby every single one was fitted with GPS and GSM technology.
His last position within SNCF was as Freight Strategy lead, where he was involved in all manners of development programs, including new railway lines.
Guigon then left SNCF to become an advisor to the French Prime Minister’s office, specialising in spatial planning and developing rail, air, road, waterborne and air transport throughout France. During this period, he set up bilateral cooperation with the Chinese Government in the framework of spatial planning for urban-rural integration, and the development of industry, culture, and agriculture.
Guigon’s most recent change was joining UIC 10 years ago, where he is now the Passenger Director and is responsible for ticket distribution, high-speed rail, commuter and regional services, railway stations and tourism. He is also the coordinator for the Latin American and Middle Eastern regions.
At the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020, supported by the UIC team, Guigon launched the global Covid-19 Task Force to provide members and partners with a place to share best practices, information on managing the Covid-19 crisis, as well as concrete guidance. Every country impacted by the situation participated in these best practice exchanges and showed their solidarity with each other.
Following the Ukrainian crisis, Guigon launched the UIC Refugee Task Force to share know-how in migratory flow crisis management, and to organise exchanges between train operators and infrastructure managers in order to be properly prepared for receiving refugees.
During the ceremony, Guigon thanked all of the colleagues at UIC as well as the UIC members and partners for their active involvement towards improving and developing the rail sector.
