ADIF, RENFE and West Japan Railway Company (JR-West) signed a cooperation agreement in September to exchange knowledge and technology in the area of maintenance, management and technical development, with the objective that the railways will play a greater role in economic and social development as well as environmental protection.

The agreement was signed in Madrid by the presidents of ADIF, Enrique Verdeguer; RENFE, Julio Gómez-Pomar, and JR-West, Seiji Manabe.

The three companies will work together to develop solutions aimed at improving safety, comfort and customer satisfaction as well as technical training of staff. Therefore, training sessions are planned, as well as specialised seminars and technical visits to operations and infrastructure in Spain and Japan. The agreement will last for three years, and will be automatically renewable for another three years.

A commitment to innovation and collaboration

ADIF’s objectives are to increase strategic cooperation with public and private research, and pursue developments and technological innovation within their business potential priority areas and also in R&D&I promoted by the Spanish government and the European Union through the Framework Programme for R&D&I.

RENFE, as a global reference in high speed operation in and commuter services, aims to further deepen relations with major rail operators in the world as part of its internationalisation strategy.

JR-West is one of the companies in Japan Railways Group (JR Group), the company that operates the railway lines in Japan. Based in Osaka, JR-West manages 5012 kilometres of railway lines, of which 644 are high speed, and more than 1,200 stations. The company operates more than 500 daily trains over 270 conventional and high speed rail line linking Osaka to Fukuoka (Sanyo Shinkansen).

(Source: ADIF)