Most of the main stakeholders in the railway sector as well as many small and medium enterprises working as suppliers of the rail industry from all over the world were gathered last week for a new edition of the InnoTrans event (organised every two years) hosted at the Messe Exhibition Centre in Berlin.
A UIC delegation, led by Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, and including several Directors and Senior Advisors from UIC technical departments, participated in InnoTrans to support the strong presence of Member railways.
A large number of UIC Member railways from around the world participated in the InnoTrans event with exhibition stands, most of them demonstrating a high degree of innovation and creativity with the aim of presenting the professional public with an overview of their latest achievements and research trends. The Member railways’ senior management was also strongly represented among the trade fair visitors.
A number of Member railways took advantage of the presence of the worldwide railway and transport community in Berlin to give specific presentations on their strategies, projects and achievements.
During InnoTrans UIC organised a meeting of the International Railway Research Board (IRRB) and participated as one of the founding members in the Organising Committee of the World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR) – also organised by Deutsche Bahn in Berlin.
In addition UIC was well represented in several activities, conferences and events organised by its members, partner organisations and railway associations.
Among them, the PROTECTRAIL project was presented in a session dedicated to security at the UNIFE stand. Following an introductory presentation by project coordinator Vito Siciliano from Ansaldo STS, a networking meeting followed where several PROTECTRAIL partners answered questions from an interested audience in an informal atmosphere. The project was presented throughout the fair at the stand with a dedicated project work station and staff to answer any questions.
For more information please visit www.protectrail.eu
The Mid-Term Conference on PROTECTRAIL – “Results and the way ahead” – will be held in Bratislava on 24 October (more information in the article below).
Despite a sluggish global economy, the 2012 InnoTrans expanded and established new records, thus becoming the leading global trade show dedicated to transport technologies.
The theme for this year’s show was “The Future of Mobility” and the event attracted more than 110,000 visitors.
In addition this year, with more than 2,515 exhibitors from 49 countries taking part, the InnoTrans trade fair provided an unparalleled showcase for the world’s railway industry and for buyers and sellers of passenger and freight transport technology.
2012 was the year of all records with a full range of rail vehicles (115) presented in static displays on the tracks located outside the exhibition halls.
Other key InnoTrans features such as Railway Infrastructure, Interiors, Public Transport and Tunnel Construction were still very well represented with large supply groups, railway operators, infrastructure managers and trade associations.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of exhibitors were small and medium-sized specialist suppliers, described as the “hidden champions” of the rail sector.
94,608m² of exhibition space were allocated to InnoTrans 2012 with a record attendance of foreign exhibitors making up 57%.
The exhibition was organised around five main themes represented with groups of halls allocated for each topic:
- Railway Technology
- Interiors
- Infrastructure
- Public Transport
- Tunnel Construction
On 18 September, the opening ceremony addressed the theme of “Innovations & Growth”, attracting more than 1,000 representatives from the rail industry and politicians.
In addition, during the whole length of InnoTrans, a series of conferences and events were organised on different topics directly related to the current rail business and its challenges for the future from a strategic as well as a technical and commercial point of view.
In total, 147 new products were registered in the Salon. For 104 of them, it was new global innovations, 25 of them were new European products and 18 of them were new technologies in Germany. Among these were new ticketing systems, the new ERTMS system as well as new communication systems and new high speed and freight machines.
