Thanks to the support of the Belgian Police, UIC had the opportunity to organise the first rail field study on 8 April 2016 in the Eurostar Channel Terminal from Brussels-Midi railway station.

As a partner of the BODEGA consortium, UIC is the coordinator of the BODEGA field studies.

The field study team was composed of Human Factor specialists as well as an expert in ethics, representing CEA, CEIS, the University of Namur and UIC.

The day focused on making observations on the field and conducting interviews with several Belgian border guards. It was also the opportunity to interview trainers, operational managers and top managers of border guards.

It was the opportunity to better understand the current activities of border guards and to ask them some questions about their needs in the framework of the “smart border initiative” that will be implemented soon by the European Commission. The human expertise that is required for the border guard officers was really impressive.

At this stage of the field studies, lots of raw data from interviews and observations have been collected and will be analysed through a common grid of analysis. Obviously, all these data remain anonymous and confidential, complying with the deontological and ethical principles shared within BODEGA’s consortium.

Following this preliminary analysis, some first inputs for the BODEGA recommendations will emerge… and will have to be followed!

UIC would especially like to thank the Belgian Police, who despite the recent events helped to achieve this first field study in the BODEGA project.

Reminder: BODEGA is a three-year European research project aiming to facilitate the construction of the future smart borders through ethical, societal and legal considerations into a set of human, organisational and technical factors.