PREDICT Plenary Meeting, 16 – 17 March 2015, CEA Rocamadour-France
On 16 – 17 March, the second PREDICT plenary meeting was organised by CEA (the project coordinator). The aim of the PREDICT project is to provide a comprehensive solution for dealing with cascading effects in multi-sectoral crisis situations covering aspects of critical infrastructures (more information at http://www.predict-project.eu/).
During the course of the two days, all the WPs provided an update of their activities with regard to the current project management period.
UIC, as an “end-user” representative partner, provides most of its efforts within Work Package 7 (WP7), where the objectives are to engage public authorities, first responders and critical infrastructure operators from different (and cross-border) sectors for understanding the (potential) cascading effects in crisis situations; to evaluate with them the potential of the PREDICT tools and methods suite; and to prepare supporting Training Methodology and Tooling.
In the next few months, a specific rail accident scenario will be developed, leading to the implementation of a Table Top Exercise (October 2015), where the (potential) cascading effects in situations such as these can be better managed.
PREDICT will deliver software tools bundled in the PREDICT Incident Evolution Tool, which will consist of two core components: a Foresight and Prediction Tool (for the simulation of the evolution of cascading effects and impact on multi-sectoral dependencies) and a Decision-Support Tool (for determining the best course of action and to calculate the risk associated with them).
2nd Metal Theft Workshop, 1 April, Paris UIC HQ
Within the framework of the Contract Service MOVE Unit Vigie N° 2014-690 granted by the European Commission DG MOVE-Unit A4 to the UIC Security Division-Platform namely to the UIC Metal Theft WG, the Second Metal Theft Workshop, took place on 1 April at UIC, Paris.
The workshop was dedicated to collect and exchange information between the participants with regard to the current information collected for each type of metal theft incident. This covered a wide range of presentations, which analysed the various rail metal theft information criteria that were used; the rail security data indicators collected; recording methodologies and data interfaces exchange processes between the rail operating community and the law enforcement authorities.
The conclusions of the three workshops (last one planned for June 2015) will help to shape the framework on the fight against metal theft, in order to create a support system not just towards the railway operating community, but as well as a guidance to all in the value chain (other sectors like Energy, Telecommunications, Scrap Metal Dealers, and Law Enforcement Authorities), with regard to metal theft mitigation efforts.
TETRIS project: Workshop on Terrorism against Railway Infrastructures, 2 April 2015, Brussels
On 2 April, the first workshop on “Terrorism against Railway Infrastructures” was organised by CEIS in the framework of the TETRIS project which is co-funded by DG Home of the European Commission.
The UIC Security Division is a member of the TETRIS consortium and is involved in the identification of typical scenarios, defining guidelines and framework for the design of an exercise, drafting of lessons learned and recommendations, and disseminating activities.
This workshop brought together around 20 end-users. The first results of the project were explained and José Pires from UIC presented the expectations from rail sector. The afternoon was dedicated to a discussion on the selection of the scenario to be used during the TETRIS crisis management exercises.
SNCF Anti-Trespass Panels Working Group, 9 April, Paris
The UIC Security Division is a member of a French working group focused on the prevention of railway trespassing. This working group was launched by SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français) in February 2015.
SNCF plans to implement anti-trespass panels (http://restrail.eu/toolbox/spip.php?article106) in several trespassing hotspots on the French railway network in order to dissuade pedestrians to cross the tracks illegally. The goal is also and to test the effectiveness of these interventions through a series of field studies. The implementation and evaluation period is estimated for the last quarter of 2015 and the first half of 2016.
Anti-trespass panels are a new and promising measure which was recommended by the RESTRAIL project (http://www.restrail.eu) and by its practical toolbox (http://restrail.eu/toolbox/). Grigore Havarneanu (Research Advisor within UIC’s Security Division (havarneanu at uic.org) attended the meetings that took place on 24 February and 9 April to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills from RESTRAIL into this ambitious project. The planning of this intervention will be concluded in the next meetings of the working group.
Seminar on “Innovation for railway infrastructure – logistics aspects”, 9 April in Warsaw
This seminar was organised by the Polish National Defence University with PKP PLK in Warsaw. Around 50 representatives from the ministry of transport, the national safety authority, and the defence authority participated in the seminar aiming to raise awareness on rail specificities regarding safety and security.
Jacques Colliard, Head of the UIC Security Division, chaired a session on security and presented the main concepts of the Railway Security System and UIC’s role. The security research projects where UIC is involved were presented by Marie-Hélène Bonneau; then Jan Politiek from DB AG (Arriva) gave information on some technical innovation such as FFCCTV (Front Forward CCTV) that is currently being tested in the Netherlands. Maria-Cristina Fiorentino, General Secretary of COLPOFER, presented the activities of the group as well as the experience of Italian Railways. Finally Włodzimierz Ternawski, General Secretary of the UIC Security-BIRC Working Group, presented the international cooperation for the protection of railway services on the Eurasian corridors.
