UIC has been engaged in cost benchmarking activities together with a number of its members for over fourteen years now, particularly in the area of Infrastructure Maintenance and Renewals. UIC’s LICB project has established an international cost comparison on renewal and maintenance of railway infrastructure with fourteen European railways currently involved.
In order to preserve the value created by InfraCost, the initial project started in 1996, the “Lasting Infrastructure Cost Benchmarking” (LICB) was established in 2003 to guarantee a UIC-led platform for a continuous comparison and trend tracking.

In recent years, members have identified the need for some “overhaul” of LICB to not only preserve the value created so far but also to revitalise and enhance the activity.
For the work to begin, the Infrastructure Forum decided to call the necessary budget.
A very ambitious work plan was established .The work began last September and the task will be achieved at the end of June 2010.
Last week the plenary members working group analysed the development of the proposed schedule and the work consistency.
The mains issues envisaged at this new stage will be:

– The improvement of the methodology by assessing what needs to be done for a more specific comparison of line categories (e.g. main lines, high-speed lines) and to create a refined standardisation methodology of the railway costs, also taking into account the different stages in the infrastructure life cycle
– Optimisation of data processing – how information assessments and evaluations can be simplified and data quality (input and output) be improved

LICB participant members are satisfied with the work carried out to date and hope to have a “reshape” cost benchmarking as soon as possible following the implementation of the new methodology and software.