23 October 2013 was dedicated to a workshop on railway security. At the start of the discussions, Jacques Colliard presented the main aspects of work currently underway within the UIC Security Division and Platform.

He underlined the increasing complexity of implementing security policies given the changing roles and responsibilities of various railway companies, and the specific features of security in large multimodal stations – as had been addressed during the 2013 Next Station conference – given their importance as a place of multimodal transport, as a place in the city with businesses and other activities, and finally as a place of life bringing together people from all backgrounds who are there for different purposes and with disparate wishes and demands.

Mr Colliard underlined the need to develop coherence between all stakeholders, both in stations as well as on international routes. He reverted to the idea of integrated protection for railways, which supports the customer’s wish for everything to run smoothly throughout the journey, and which consists in establishing coherence and synergy between the aspects of security, safety and civil defence… which involves different stakeholders and responsibilities constantly interacting with each other.

Finally he stressed the aspects of resilience and crisis management in the event of an incident, given the importance of rail transport both in everyday transport and long-distance traffic, and in particular high speed.

At the end of the discussions several participants mentioned the need to improve coordination between the various working groups on these different topics, and that this could be perhaps be achieved by changing the composition and geographic locations.