The Euromed Regional Transport Project “Road, Rail and Urban Transport” (RRU)
is a project funded by the European Union. It started in December 2011.
The consortium is led by SAFEGE (France).
The specific priorities of the project for railways are based on the Regional Transport Action Plans and are to provide technical assistance and training for:
- Enhancing international cooperation in the region (harmonisation between partner states for standards & regulations, regional agreements )
- Separation of infrastructure ownership and railway operation
- Developing an action plan for sustainable and efficient rail transport to support the modal shift from road to rail
- Institutional, technical, operational interoperability, how to benefit from ERTMS
- Safety management: independent national safety authority, accident investigation bodies, safety at level crossings, common safety indicators and targets
This workshop on 23 – 24 March 2016 in Cairo, Egypt was dedicated to Level Crossing issues. It was co-organised by the Ministry of Transport (MoT), the Egypt National Railways (ENR), the Euromed RRU project in cooperation with UIC, UNECE and the Spanish Twinning project, supporting the Egyptian MoT in the implementation of the Railway Safety Management System.
Ambassador Mahmoud Allam, Minister’s Advisor for International cooperation, and Euromed Transport National Coordinator, opened the event as the representative of the Ministry of Transportation in Egypt. About 60 participants from MoT, ENR, University of Cairo, police officers and representatives from the Ministry of Public work attended this event. The participants were involved in the prevention of rail accidents, management of rail safety, design and implementation of level crossing control measures, etc.
The following topics were presented and discussed:
- Best practices on an international level
- Level crossing equipment, protective measures
- Safety reporting and statistics, UIC Safety Database, benchmarking, mapping
- Illegal level crossing management
- Communication and awareness towards road users:
- International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD),
- Common actions of UIC with UNECE and IRU
- International rules and standards development by UNECE
- Human behaviour, Human Factor issues
Speakers from Egypt (MoT, ENR – Egyptian National Railways, and Universities) reported on the current situation of level crossings in Egypt.
International speakers came from UNECE, Robert Nowak, PKP/Poland, Jacek Wojciechowicz, Euromed expert, Romain Boeglin (RSC/France) and from Spain (Twinning project with Egypt). UIC was represented by Peter Gerhardt, Manager of the Safety Unit and Olivier Georger (UIC Safety Database Manager).
