In early February, UIC participated in a conference organised by the Hungarian Association for Transport (KTE) in Budapest to discuss the “Possibilities of the Rising of Transcontinental Freight Transportation due to the opening of RFC 6”.
UIC was represented by Mr Miklos Kopp, UIC Director for Freight and by Mr Oleg Nikolaev, International Railway Advisor for Russian and CIS affairs within the UIC Rail System Department.

One of the main aims of UIC’s work is to develop an agreed approach for the development and promotion of international transport corridors, and to coordinate efforts with international intergovernmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations and the transport business with regard to increasing the efficiency of interregional passenger and rail freight transport.

In developing a concept plan for the development of interregional transport corridors it is necessary to take into account the results of work by other international organisations, primarily the UN and its regional commissions.

The main guiding principle for the development of international transport corridors is the desire to create the most favourable conditions possible for increasing the efficiency of foreign trade transport and to guarantee that they will be implemented on the basis of international agreements and conventions, and also to attract additional passenger and freight traffic to the services that are included in international transport corridors, including transit traffic, both by means of alternative routes and also by redistributing it efficiently between different types of transport.

The key principles for creating and developing international transport corridors are:

• the opportunity to undertake large volumes of internal transport
• the use of intermodal and multimodal approaches
• integration of the concept plan for developing ‘dry ports’
• compliance with international standards and best practice, and also with the requirements of economically efficient investment in transport development
• harmonisation of transport legislation on the basis of common principles and standards, multilateral legal documents and conventions
• the requirements to ensure transport safety, safety from acts of unlawful interference on rail transport, and also protection of the environment and human health, as defined by the relevant international norms
• cooperation at all levels and between all countries, including addressing border-crossing issues
• the use of the common CIM/SMGS consignment note which is also recognised as a customs transit document
• operational cooperation within and between individual types of transport, and also between traffic management systems.