The 10th Training Session on Railway Safety, organised by ONCF and UIC Africa from 27 June to 1 July, was delivered online, uniting over 120 participants from 15 countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Djibouti, Mali, Niger, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad and Republic of the Congo.
During the official opening ceremony, Said Chandid, ONCF, Responsible for the UIC Africa Office in Rabat, noted the success of these annual training sessions at the Rabat Training centre, which had been organised since 2013 and were open to all railway networks in Africa. During the pandemic, the development of new online tools made it possible to significantly increase the number of participants, with an average satisfaction rate of 94%. Maria Lafont, UIC Africa Coordination, presented UIC activities and focused on the added values stipulated in Technical Solutions for the Operational Railway (https://uic.org/about/about-uic/#UIC-Technical-Solutions-for-the-operational-railway) for greater efficiency and more benefits for its members.
For one week, daily 3-hour training sessions were organised by ONCF experts on the subjects of SMS safety, signalling programming and scheduling track maintenance works, among other topics.
The UIC Training Session was delivered by experts from the UIC Safety Unit, and Isabelle Fonverne, Virginie Papillault and Olivier Georger presented UIC Safety activities and the key projects for the 2022-2025 period, including: Functional Organisation of Railway Operations and Traffic Control Centres, Operational Use Cases of 5G for Rail, Digitalisation of Safety/Performance in Railway, Level crossing safety, Safety data, Trespass and Suicide Prevention, Human and Organisational Factors, and Occupational Health and Safety.
