The official kick-off meeting for ILCAD 2012 took place on 3 February 2012 at the RSSB premises in London, at the kind invitation of Alan Davies, Chairman of ELCF (European Level Crossing Forum).
Alan Davies and Isabelle Fonverne, Coordinator of ILCAD, welcomed 25 participants, including a newcomer from DB AG (Volker Buhrmester).
They firstly informed the participants about a meeting organised from 12 – 13 January by Turkish Railways (TCDD) and the newly-created Governmental Commission on level crossings, police forces and the road sector to better tackle the issue of safety at level crossings in their own country.
The following ILCAD partners: Nicole Quayle (Network Rail), Tamo Vahemets (Operation Lifesaver Estonia), Christian Flora (CFL), Susana Abrantes (REFER, represented by I. Fonverne) and Philippe Feltz (RFF) presented their activities during ILCAD 2011 and their future projects for ILCAD 2012.
The UIC (Liesbeth de Jong and Isabelle Fonverne) presented the positive results of ILCAD 2011 through partners’ actions worldwide, the ILCAD website: www.ilcad.org and social network pages and press coverage (almost 500 press articles).
Isabelle Fonverne confirmed the date of the future campaign for 7 June 2012. Some partners will expand their actions in 2012, and some additional countries or companies will join the campaign: NRIC (Bulgaria), JBV (Norway), Railnet Denmark and others who have not yet officially confirmed their participation.
She informed participants about the communications media made available to the ILCAD partners: website, social networks, videos, a future video to be made and shared, 14 different UIC posters may be adapted with partner logos and motto in their own language, a folding poster, tags, and flyers in different languages.
Since 2012 is the year the Olympic Games will be held, she suggested that ILCAD partners organise their campaign, if possible, under the patronage of a famous sportsman or woman, and photos or films to be collated for a future exhibition at the GLX symposium in October in London.
All participants then agreed on the launch of the 2nd UIC International drawing contest for children on level crossing safety (date to be determined). An exhibition of the winning drawings could also be organised at the GLX in October in London and also on 7 June by the different ILCAD partners in their own country. Further information will be given in a future issue.
The ILCAD 2012 International Press Conference will be held in Paris at the kind invitation of RFF, Philippe Feltz (location and details will follow later on). Keynote speakers (politicians, railway CEOs, journalists and other VIPs will be invited).
Alan Davies reminded level crossings specialists of two major LX events in 2012:
- 3 and 4 May 2012: ELCF plenary meeting in Hamarstua near Oslo (Norway) at the kind invitation of JBV
- And the 12th Level crossing and Trespass Symposium
http://www.levelcrossing2012.org/Pages/home.aspx and IRSC http://www.irsc2012.org/Pages/home.aspx in London 7 – 12 October 2012 organised by RSSB (Alan Davies/RSSB, ELCF Chairman): registration and call for papers officially launched
ILCAD is organised on a voluntary and collaborative basis. So join us and help the railway community to reduce this level of operational risk that we face at the interface with the road sector.
