The meeting was held in Paris under the chairmanship of Mr Lubomir Hradisky (ZSSK, Slovakia) and in the company of Mr Chandar S. Ray representing the Vice-Chairman Mr Pradeep Kumar Mehta (Railway Protection Force, India).

The meeting served as an occasion to approve the structure of the next UIC World Security Congress to take place on 13 and 14 November in Paris, UIC HQ. The overarching theme of the congress will be “Security policy: which strategies, regulations and partnerships for railway companies?” The various sessions will address different sub-themes: national partnerships and strategies, metal theft, border management, international professional and institutional partnerships, exchange of information, aspects specific to high speed security, research projects in progress, etc. The congress is being organised in cooperation with SNCF, who will lead a technical visit in Gare du Nord station, with a presentation of an exercise in how to manage an incident on an international rail service that could result in public disorder on arrival in the station.

Registration for the congress is still possible on the UIC website or by emailing security@uic.org

The Steering Committee meeting was also an opportunity to take stock of progress on the activities and prospects of the various working groups in place (human factors, technology, strategy and regulation, metal theft, border crossing and international corridors) and to present the main research projects monitored by the security division and in particular Protectrail, whose final demonstration is taking place in Zmigrod, Poland this week (7 – 11 October 2013) before the final conference scheduled to be held in spring 2014 at UIC.

Finally a debate was held on the state of progress of the handbook on the security of high speed systems currently being developed by the UIC security division and passenger department (and associated groups and forums).