The 8th Rail System Forum (RSF) Plenary Session was chaired on 29th April 2014 by RFI CEO, Michele Mario Elia, at the UIC in Paris.
UIC Director General, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, welcomed members and presented a number of UIC events organised since January 2014. He invited members to boost rail research projects where UIC has been keeping a leading role as coordinator and technical advisor in coordination with the RCG (Research Coordination Group) and to promote the new project proposals for 2015 within their railways.
A brainstorming session including RSF Chairmen, the RSF Sector Chairmen (Track & Structures, Train Track Interaction, Control Command & Signalling, Energy Management and Rolling Stock) and the Rail System Department Director took place prior to the plenary session, in order to lay out the respective work plans for the months and years to come.
The results were presented at the plenary session by
- Thomas Joindot (SNCF),
- Sam Berggren (Trafikverket),
- Pierre-Etienne Gautier (Systra).
The Chairman of the Standardisation Platform, Stefano Guidi (Trenitalia), outlined progress made with the preparation of International Railway Standards. Several updates on the progress of work of the Asset Management Experts Group, the Operation Focus Group and the RailML and Data Modelling were delivered by the Chairmen of the groups and UIC Senior Advisors.
Members from all mayor European Railways as well as from Asia and Russia participated at the session which focused on the presentation of new Project proposals for 2015.
A total of 19 new projects representing over € 4,5 m were presented to members, many coming from the Rolling Stock Sector, including some very interesting topics related to infrastructure, track technology , energy and signalling areas.
It was pointed out that a selection of projects would be carried out and jointly financed with other regions (Asia-Pacific Region, Middle East Region) and departments. In relation to this, two clusters, one concentrating on the Eurasian freight corridor and the other on the high speed System were mentioned in particular.
Results will be available at the next RSF plenary session in October 2014.
RSF members officially approved three UIC Leaflets, namely 725, 779-1 and 721, which will be published and distributed to all UIC members after translation into German and French.
