The 19th UIC Asia Pacific Regional Assembly successfully took place on 11 and 12 May 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and was kindly hosted by Ulaanbaatar Railways. Chaired by Mr Satoshi Seino, Chairman of East Japan Railway Company, and vice-chaired by Mr Purevbaatar Luvsandagva, Chairman of Ulaanbaatar Railways, this statutory meeting dealt with the numerous regional and multiregional actions undertaken since the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. This mid-year edition was also the occasion to promote the work of UIC Headquarters by Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General, as well as from the UIC Asia-Pacific sub-regional representatives (ASEAN, CIS and Pacific) based in Kuala Lumpur, Moscow and Melbourne.
Coordinated by Vincent Vu, Director of Institutional Relations and Coordinator of UIC Asia-Pacific, the studies on the design of layout of drivers’ cabs in Asian rail vehicles and on the upgrade of overhead equipment to 200 km/h were finally delivered by their respective project leaders (Indian Railways and KRRI from Korea) and the participants were informed about the status of the other on-going studies, including the forthcoming strategic document Vision 2050 for UIC Asia-Pacific.
The results of the workshop on training simulators for locomotive crews were disseminated by Russian Railways while the announcements of the future events in the Asia-Pacific region by each host invited all the members to participate in the workshops on Heavier and Longer Trains (Russian Railways), on Safety (SPAD, Malaysia), on Quality Standards for High Speed Passenger Services (National Railway Administration of China), and in the next training initiatives on railway reforms (MIIT, Russia) and on rolling-stock maintenance (KORAIL, Korea).
The Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly also validated the funding process for activities in 2016, proposing 9 regional projects and 13 other projects with Europe or the Middle-East to the members to opt-in until September 2015. They will be an opportunity to involve four new railway organisations from Korea (ETRI: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), Australia (Transport for New South Wales), Indonesia (Ministry of Transportation) and Russia (Moscow State University of Railway Engineering) that were granted provisional membership to be validated at the forthcoming General Assembly. Like all the other members, they are invited to contribute to the activities of the UIC Asia-Pacific Region, especially in the frame of the strategic activities commonly funded and open to all.
The next UIC Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly is scheduled in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 17 November 2015.
