UIC and the Ministry of Railways (MOR) of the People’s Republic of China are organising UIC HIGHSPEED 2010, the 7th world Congress on High Speed Rail, on 7 – 9 December 2010 in Beijing.

The Chairmen of the congress Mr Liu Zhijun, Minister of Railways of China and Mr Yoshio Ishida, UIC Chairman, will officially open the congress on 7 December together with Mr José Blanco, Spanish Transport Minister, Mr Mauro Moretti, CEO of Italian Railways (FS) and UIC Vice-Chairman, Mr He Huawu, Chief Engineer of the Chinese Ministry of Transport (MOR), Mr Huh Joon-Young, CEO of Korail and Chairman of the UIC Asian Regional Assembly (South Korea), Mr Hubert du Mesnil, President of the French Rail Infrastructure Manager (RFF)
and Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General.

Prominent figures who will take the floor during these three days include:

• Mrs Karen Rae, Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration,
• US Department of Transportation
• Mr Guillaume Pepy, President of SNCF (France)
• Mr André Navarri, Member of the Presiding Board of the Association of the European Rail
• Industry (UNIFE) and President and CEO of Bombardier Transportation
• Mr Masaki Ogata, Vice-Chairman of East Japan Railway Company
• Mr Zbigniew Szafranski, Chairman of the Board PKP Polish Railway Lines Company,
• Chairman of UIC Rail Systems Forum
• Mr Vincenzo Soprano, CEO of Trenitalia (Italy)
• Mr Michele Elia, CEO of the Italian Rail Infrastructure Manager and Chairman of the UIC
• ERTMS Platform (Italy)
• Mr Teófilo Serrano Beltrán, Chairman of the Spanish rail operator (RENFE Operadora)
• Mr Antonio González Marín, CEO of the Spanish infrastructure manager (ADIF)
• Mr Norimichi Kumagai, Executive Director of Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI
• Japan)
• Mr. Zheng Jian, Chief Planning Officer at MOR (P. R. China)
• 2/3
• Mrs Barbara Dalibard, CEO of SNCF Voyages
• Mr Olaf Mense, ERTMS Marketing Group of UNIFE

This leading conference is organised around two round tables dealing with “High Speed Rail towards the Future” and “High Speed Rail Innovations” respectively. Seven blocks of thirty-five parallel sessions totalling 240 presentations on dedicated topics directly connected with high speed rail development will include:

• High Speed Rail and Socio-economic Development: environment, energy and resources, noise and vibrations, economics, financing, territory management
• High speed rolling stock: design and manufacturing, use and maintenance, traction power supply
• High speed operations: safety and security, standards and interoperability, extreme and exceptional natural conditions, signalling and communications
• High Speed Infrastructure: track maintenance, tunnels & bridges, track components
• High Speed and network planning: project management, training and human resources
• High Speed and Stations: architecture, high speed and the city, multimodal stations
• High Speed Rail and Marketing: service quality, commercial aspects, marketing
• and distribution.