The Fifth Session of the Working Party on Rail Transport brought together almost 40 participants from rail transport across Europe and Asia, under the aegis of the Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva, from 4 – 5 July. The meeting was attended by railway companies and European and Asian governments as well as international stakeholders and institutions involved in rail transport, including UIC – represented by Vincent Vu, Director of International Relations – and its partners.

This group will build on the Joint Declaration on Euro-Asian rail transport and activities towards unified rail law, signed during the Ministerial Meeting on 26 February in Geneva (see UIC eNews 335: http://uic.org/com/uic-e-news/335), in defining the scope of work to be conducted over the next two years: focusing on giving precedence to freight transport over passenger transport, promoting Euro-Asia rail corridors at international and regional level, intermodal benchmarking, mapping of key players, comparing CIM and SMGS systems, the issue of a single set of legal rules governing rail transport between Europe and Asia, unification of international rail transport laws with the aim of establishing a single legal regime for rail transport and identifying a suitable management system were the major issues that the participants tried to address. The work is set to continue in early December.