The “Stakeholders’ Advisory and Validation Group (SA&VG)” is appointed to monitor the project throughout its life cycle, providing input into user requirements and scenarios and assessing results.
The workshop kicked off with the presentation of results of the SP2 “Functional and technical railway security specification” by the sub-project leader from Ansaldo, followed by five case studies: Tunnel protection by RFI, Station protection by Israel Railways, UEFA 2012 by PKP-PLK, Track protection by SNCF and Key security issues by DB.
Security technology should be simple, reliable, robust and affordable and all railway representatives emphasised that technology should support staff but will never replace them. The passenger’s sense of security is also a major concern for the railways.
The representative of TRANSEC (Transport Security and Contingencies Directorate of the Department for Transport in UK) explained the close relation between transport authority and intelligence services. The threat level is defined at national level and is very different from one country to another in Europe. The cooperation between all the stakeholders involved (rail operators, infrastructure managers, police, transport authorities, first responders...) is a key issue in security management.
Ivan Sorensen, representative of DG MOVE, indicated that railway transport and public transport are among the top five issues of concern when dealing with terrorism. He underlined the importance of end users being involved in a project such as PROTECTRAIL.
This workshop entitled “Security aspects for railways and solutions (technologies, organisations, procedures, etc): experiences and expectations” is the last step of the user requirement definition. Based on the defined scenarios, all the PROTECTRAIL demonstrations will be consolidated in the coming months and the final demonstration will be held next year in Poland.
Reminder: The project led by Ansaldo STS Spa started in September 2010 for a duration of 42 months and at a total cost of 21 million €. Six railway companies are involved in the consortium and act as end-users: LG (Lithuania), PKP PLK SA (Poland), RFI (Italy), SNCF (France), TCDD (Turkey) and ZSSK (Slovakia). The UIC Security Division is leading the dissemination sub-project. The objective is to guarantee that the project results will satisfy user needs and fulfil railway requirements, and in particular that proposed solutions are feasible for implementation from an economical, organisational and operational perspective.
