On 26 March 2014 the third meeting of the Working Group “Security – Border Crossing, International Rail corridors” of the UIC Safety Platform was organised at the Headquarters of Finland’s Transport Agency in Helsinki. The meeting was attended by 40 representatives from railway undertakings, infrastructure managers and international and European bodies from Europe and Asia.
The meeting in Helsinki began with the election of a new Chairperson of the working group. Mrs Edyta Jaszczuk-Jezierska – PKP PLK Strategy Department Director was unanimously elected as the Chairperson of the group.
The officials of Finland delivered presentations about railway operations in Finland as well as about its security. They dwelt on issues such as railway state border crossing points, work aimed at ensuring conformity with the Schengen zone requirements and joint activities with railway companies and organisations from different countries.
As a follow-up to this topic, the Director for Development and Cooperation of Poland’s Railway Institute gave a presentation on “Security of railway border crossings – development and implementation of state-of-the-art technologies”. The participants of the meeting listened to the presentations given by the representative from Latvian Railways on the company’s practical experience in the field of railway connections, a report on Frontex Agency operations in ensuring security of the external EU borders and its joint cooperation with other countries.
The CCTT Secretariat gave a presentation on “Further usage of CCTT practical experience on developing and introducing a technological process of uninterrupted (through) safeguarding of container trains all along the China-Europe route” with emphasis on completed stages of work and on results of the meeting held in Moscow on 29 January 2014. In addition to the presentation the draft UIC/CCTT Joint Leaflet on “Ensuring security of railway transported goods in covered wagons and containers within the Euro-Asian routes” was also discussed. Preliminary results of the joint work were presented as well.
Mr Merkuryev, Session Chairperson and Subtopic leader, Chief of Economic Security and Control Department, Federal Passenger Company of Russia presented the following information:
- Bilateral meeting of FPK/ PKP PLK S.A. in Warsaw, subgroup meeting, its decisions
- Development of a data exchange system between interested entities based on the experience of the “Beijing-Moscow-Paris” pilot train
- Development of UIC Leaflet on data exchange between interested entities based on the experience of the “Beijing-Moscow-Paris” pilot train
- Agreement on data exchange relating to infringement of law in international passenger trains en route East-West
Draft Leaflet on “Ensuring security of railway passenger transport within the Euro-Asian routes” was also discussed. Preliminary results of the joint work were presented as well.
The issues relating to cooperation with authorities from a railway infrastructure operator’s point of view were discussed with the representatives of customs and state border services of Finland.
