The second annual meeting of the UIC Expertise Development Platform took place on 20 and 21 October 2016, in Rabat, Morocco, at the Institut de Formation Ferroviaire (IFF), the Rail Training institute jointly set up by ONCF and SNCF in 2015.
These meetings, which are organised twice a year, are the occasion to visit each time a training facility of the Platform’s members, share rail training features and developments in rail training across the industry, as well as get updated information on latest developments at the international level, including progress of work for the activities at the focus of the Expertise Development Platform for the next three years.
For the main agenda topic of the meeting “the impact of high speed railway line on the training system”, delegates from Morocco, Italy, Germany and Japan were invited to deliver presentations. They presented the way it was dealt with in their home organisations and shared their views and experience on this particular matter with the rest of the audience from France, Russia, Norway and Austria.
Besides a presentation of the Institute and the tour of its building and facilities, the attendees also visited the construction site of the High Speed Line in Kenitra (Tangiers to Casablanca in two hours 10 minutes).
The second part of the meeting was dedicated to the progress of UIC EDP projects and the exchange about the current situation at training centres.
The next major event for the EDP is the World Congress on Rail Training (WCRT) 2017, which will be held in Berlin/Potsdam from 5 – 7 April 2017. The next meeting of the EDP is scheduled to take place in autumn 2017.
