On 24 October 2013 the UIC Commercial and Distribution Forum was held on UIC premises in the presence of representatives of railway passenger departments.
The main subjects were as follows:
Commercial and Technical group report
MERITS and PRIFIS: Marc GUIGON presented the stakes, the main modifications and the agenda for the commissioning of the new MERITS. This new service will be operational at the beginning of next year. In January, both systems (the old and the new) will function. After January 25th, MERITS deliveries will come via the new system only. After that date, the main change will be the weekly delivery, an automated integrated process with less manual interference, a continuous timetable period for publication and new rules for the integration of international trains based either on the territorial principle or on the information provider.
Marc Guigon then explained the impact the TAP regulation will have on MERITS and PRIFIS. There will be two phases of adaptation. The first one will consist of the development of the main new functionalities. The second phase will concern the adapting of MERITS and PRIFIS when the TAP-TSI governance is in place (connection to registry, connection to Retail Reference Data (RRD)).
TAP-TSI Service Governance Body (TSGB), and the role of UIC. Marc Guigon presented the future organisation of the TAP governance (TSGB) which is to deliver certain services to the rail community. These services consist of
- Registry service
- Retail Reference Data
- Document management and change control
- Timetable data quality checking
- Integrated Reservation Tickets (IRT) Data quality checking
- Non Integrated Reservation Tickets Data quality checking
The forum endorsed the proposal that UIC should undertake a feasibility study on making the services available.
UIC-ERA Agreement on Change Control Management
Marc Guigon presented the principles of the agreement signed by UIC and ERA and proposed that this agreement begin once the TSGB (TAP Services Governance Body) is in place.
However, UIC will begin to analyse the technical content of the common parts of UIC leaflets and ERA Technical Documents.
