The Station Managers’ Global Group (SMGG) met on 30 January at UIC HQ in Paris.

The meeting was attended by members from ADIF, CFR, DB AG, NS, RFI, SNCB and SNCF-Gares & Connexions, and focused on defining the action plan for the coming months.

Among the many different subjects, and following the answers to the questionnaire sent to all UIC members, the main actions to tackle during 2012 will focus on establishing working groups to address station classification and the management of station projects.

The classification of stations is an important task to achieve, in order to establish homogeneous criteria for the reference of further analysis or studies.
A working group, chaired by RFI, will be in charge of preparing a report proposing the criteria, categories and level, etc., of station classification.

The second working group will be in charge of managing the station projects. The aim of this work consists of providing arguments to better define important projects both for new stations and the renewal of existing ones.
The main principle of governance is “who decides what”, immediately followed by “who pays what, and how and when”.
These main ideas are fully in line with the concept of “sustainable stations”, which will be the title of the study.
A draft report should be produced by December 2012.

Moreover, it was agreed that UIC Leaflet 413 (“Measures to facilitate travel by rail”) should be updated in cooperation with other working groups within the Global Passenger Forum.