Following the decision taken by the UIC General Assembly in December 2015, a UIC additional security programme was launched in 2016 at global level on three main topics.

After common work with and between the members and the involvement of the UIC security division, the following results were validated during the 2nd UIC security week on 18 and 19 October and will be submitted to the next UIC General Assembly on 1 December in Saint-Petersburg.

Topic: training and communication

• Creation of a toolbox: bringing together the training organisations and training principles for security staff, and beyond for non security staff. The toolbox will be created and updated accordingly to the key themes defined in common during the 2nd UIC security week. This toolbox will help each member to build its own training programme, organise common training events taking advantage of the various experiences. Some parts will be confidential and reserved to identified people in charge of the issue within their company.
• Awareness day: Once a year, on the same day, all the companies will organise specific events on the same security topic in order to improve the common awareness of staff and clients. The first awareness day will take place in the last week of June 2017, before the summer traffic. The most asked topics are: abandoned luggage, anti social behaviour, pick-pocketing, terrorist threats.
• New UIC transversal training: Some security topics have to be addressed with specialists outside the railways in order to take into account the various aspects of a phenomenon. The first training could be: recognition of suspicious or dangerous behaviour, profiling and conditions of intervention.

Topic: interoperability and exchange of security related information for international trains

• Creation of an International Railway Standard (IRS): common measures, specifications and recommendations, aimed at facilitating international traffic:
  • Common format for exchanging data between railways control rooms (from Colpofer WG on control rooms)
  • Common format for exchanging data for crisis management in cooperation with various responders: railways and stakeholders/partners (according to results coming from Protectrail research project)
  • Common format for registration of events for statistical analysis and preparation of coherent national security policies
  • Model of agreement for exchange of data (using results or ideas from UIC security BIRC working group, DG MOVE studies…): definition of the relevant information to be exchanged in an efficient way: 10 parties already involved, use of UIC electronic tools (extranet, accredited people).

• Creation of a hub of security information using UIC sources and integrating other external sources:
  • Coherence of rail security related information
  • Workshops, meetings on emerging topics to be organised at the request of UIC members

Topic: crisis management (and crisis communication)

• Publication of members’ experience received and with the input of COLPOFER and UITP, of a document of reference with guidelines taking into account all the various aspects of crisis management to be addressed in case of an accident or crisis: the aim is to save lives, minimise damages to environment and goods, protect operator’s reputation, and organise business continuity. Each member will be able to check its own organisation according to this document and, if needed, to improve it in a common or coherent way. The first dissemination of the document will be done during the November 2016 UIC Security Congress.

Beyond this additional security programme, two themes have been requested by the participants.

Information on two other topics:

• Quick reaction to incidents: creation of a responder’s network in order to give a first answer to an emerging question within 6 – 8 weeks maximum. This activity will be organised in cooperation with the UIC special group COLPOFER and in partnership with the UITP Security Commission.
• Management of refugees flows: the opportunity of a further work to be done in close cooperation with COLPOFER and in partnership with UITP on the presence of refugees around stations, their impact on rail traffic, possible plans for organising their transport, etc., will be discussed during the next steering committee of the UIC security platform.

All the documents are available on the extranet in the security workspace.