On 19 May 2015 the SMGG meeting took place in Paris at the kind invitation of SNCF – Gares et Connexions (SNCF’s Stations and Connections subsidiary).
SMGG is the UIC group dedicated to railway stations. It comprises station managers of UIC members and is managed by Carlos Ventura, Director of Passenger Stations at ADIF (Spain).
UIC members represented at the meeting were: ADIF, SNCF Gares & Connexions, SNCB, RFI, RZD, ONCF, Korail and Japanese Railways.
UIC Headquarters was represented by Iñaki Barrón (Director of the High Speed and Passenger Department), Marie-Hélène Bonneau (the Security Division), Virginie Papillault (Security Division), Gabriel Castañares (Senior Advisor of Energy and CO2), and Marc Guigon (Senior Advisor for Passenger Transport).
The main points discussed during the SMGG meeting were:
- The leaflet concerning information and signage in stations (181, ex 413) will be updated and extended at global level. It has been decided to carry out this task in 2016 and 2017 with a contract with AREP
- Sustainable stations. A study will be launched in June 2016 concerning the best practices on sustainable stations, addressed to managers and designers of stations: environment, technologies, organisations…
- The UIC security division represented by Virginie Papillault and Marie-Hélène Bonneau presented the security of stations following the decision taken during the last meeting held in Moscow on 24 March 2016 to work jointly between the UIC security division and the SMGG on this topic. It was decided to create a project group with a co-leader ship of station managers (RZD) and security managers (SNCF to be confirmed). A workshop on the security of stations will be organised on 17 October 2016. Furthermore, as it was decided after the 2015 Delhi UIC World Security Congress it will be the theme of the next congress that will be held on 23-25 November 2016 in Helsinki. Beyond that, the main results of the project should be ready for the Next Station conference that will be held in October 2017 in Madrid.
- Discussion about the scientific content of the next international conference on railway stations Next Station 2017 which will take place in Madrid on 19-20 October 2017. The slogan is “Smart stations in Smart cities” which contains smart governance, smart economy, smart living, smart mobility, smart environment and smart people.
During the meeting, Etienne Riot from AREP presented the AREP Designlab where architects, designers and researchers design public spaces (railway stations) and urban mobility.
The next SMGG meeting will take place on 12 and 13 October 2016 in Seoul (Korea).
