The UIC Safety Platform Steering Group meeting took place at the kind invitation of Russian Railways (RZD) on 20 – 21 July 2016 in Moscow under the leadership of the Chairman Peter Kleinschuster (ÖBB). He expressed many thanks to RZD for the organisation of this meeting and the interesting technical visit on the first day.
About 25 participants from 10 railway companies attended the meeting.
Alexander Koshkin, Chief Engineer of the Safety Department of RZD welcomed the participants and gave a presentation about safety priorities at Russian Railways (RZD).
Further RZD representatives informed participants about the following items:
- Prevention of non-workplace injuries at RZD infrastructure facilities
- Medical aspects of ensuring transportation process safety
- Situation centre for Monitoring and Emergency Situation Management
- Risk management on the railway system
During this first part of the meeting the participants exchanged safety relevant information from its companies.
Manfred Kunz (ÖBB) gave a presentation about the Austrian activity “Operation in fall-back mode”.
Peter Gerhardt reported on the publication of the Technical Pillar of the
4th Railway Package on 26 May in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The name of the “European Railway Agency” (ERA) has changed to
“European Union Agency for Railways” (Agency).
The UIC System Safety Management Group (SSMG)/CER Safety Support Group is especially dealing with Agency related safety issues. Participants were informed about the following issues:
- Agency workshop on “One Stop Shop” (OSS) for “Single Safety Certificate (SSC) and Vehicle Authorisation (VA)
- Agency workshop on “Common Occurrence Reporting” (COR)
- Revision of the CSM on Risk Assessment (RA)
- Joint Network Secretariat (JNS)
- European activities on Safety Culture
Andreas Hahnl, ÖBB/former Chairman of the UIC Safety Performance Group (SPG), reported on the activities of this working group, especially the preparation of the UIC Safety Database Report 2016.
Bart Hoogcarspel (ProRail) took over the position of SPG Chairman.
Participants discussed the subject of “Dangerous Goods Transport” and agreed on the importance of this topic. The activities on DGT (Dangerous Goods Transport) are to be continued in the existing organisation and working bodies, such as OTIF, RID, Agency workshops.
Roan Willmore (Network Rail/UK), chairperson of the Task Force on Contractor Health & Safety, and Maria Hedquist (Trafikverket/Sweden) gave a presentation about the results of this Task Force; a UIC workshop for the dissemination of the results was confirmed and will take place on 8 November 2016.
Isabelle Fonverne highlighted the activities on Level Crossing Safety:
- 8th edition of the “International Level Crossing Awareness Day” (ILCAD) on 10/11 June 2016 in Riga/Tallinn, coordinated by UIC: www.ilcad.org
- A press conference and round table with experts from road and rail was hosted by LDZ (Latvian Railways) in Riga
- 14th Global Level Crossing & Trespass Prevention Symposium 2016 (GLXS) hosted by TRAFI (Finnish Transport Safety Agency, 12 – 16 June 2016 in Helsinki/Finland: http://www.trafi.fi/en/GLXS2016
- The joint UIC/IRU/OLE Estonia flyer “Safety tips for professional drivers at level crossings
- UN-ECE road/rail Group of Experts on improving safety at level crossings
Participants were informed of ILCAD 2017 to take place on 2 June.
Peter Gerhardt reminded the meeting of the “International Railway Safety Council” (IRSC) to be held from 2 – 7 October 2016 in Paris, organised by SNCF and EPSF, the French National Safety Authority, and supported by UIC.
The main conference theme this year:
“Railway safety: meeting the challenges of tomorrow’s society”.
Registration is open: for detailed information participants were asked to visit www.irsc2016.org
The next UIC Safety Platform Steering Group meeting is scheduled to take place on 14 September 2016 in Graz, Austria (kindly hosted by ÖBB). The plenary meeting will be held on 9 November at Paris UIC Headquarters.
