Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General of UIC, addressed the 1520 Certification Conference held on 2 March 2017 in Moscow. The conference was hosted by the Union of Railway Constructors (SSZD) and Moscow State University of Railway Engineering (MIIT), and supported by Russian Railways (RZD).
Mr Boris Levin, Rector of MIIT, opened the conference. The most important event announced during the conference was the establishment of the Certification Cathedra of MIIT which is going to be chaired by Mr Genady Talashkin, President of SSZD.
Mr Loubinoux pointed out some specific topics in his speech which touched upon subjects of the conference linked to the international dimension of certification:
“…In the railway field, standardisation and certification are some of the main tools to consolidate the achievements obtained, to allow for the development and dissemination and thus it constitutes a key asset in the hands of the regulatory bodies and various railway companies.
For many years UIC, thanks to its associative nature, has undertaken a path to enhance its natural vocation of the World Organisation for Railway Standardisation in respect of its traditions and of the heritage of railway knowledge accumulated throughout 90 years of history.
In this vein, UIC has introduced the International Railway Standardised Technical Solutions (IRS), which naturally constitute voluntary tools of credibility between interfaces (industry – railway companies – customers), that allow you to pool specifications and processes among different users, to define the basic functions, the interfaces and the performances of railway systems and to assist the stakeholders in their implementation, application and management.
We are sure that these tools will prevent components of inadequate quality or “marketing lock-in strategy” from being supplied to railway networks and, thus, will provide our Members with enhanced safety, interoperability and increased cost-benefit efficiency.
In these and other premises we are invited to look for the reasons for the development of the synergies already in place between UIC, SSZD, MIIT and other scientific technical centres, which so far have produced significant results in the field of standardisation. Now it makes sense to expand the cooperation within the certification domain where standards become a tool for conformity assessment and mutual trust.
The search for a mutual cooperation, for which I believe we have now ripe conditions suitable to its establishment, now needs to be developed within further joint UIC – SSZD – MIIT standardisation and certification activities or, subject to your agreement, by experts of our organisations who have to be tasked with detailing in a short time the basic elements of a cooperation to combine the common and specific regulatory or voluntary certification elements despite differences of railway systems Eurasia-wide.
During the recent SSZD-UIC meeting in January, we discussed with Mr Talashkin, in the framework of the Memorandum signed in 2016, the UIC participation for the certification professionals to be prepared and qualified with a Masters in Railway Science and skills improvement training on the MIIT University basis as well as cooperation on the development of a centre of competence and certification body in the field of infrastructure for High Speed Lines.
The advantages of a reference standardisation system, able to represent the current certification needs and real models of the railway service, are undisputed and affect not only the intrinsic characteristics of the service, like safety and interoperability, but also the answers to all the challenges on mobility in modern societies.
I hope that these concepts, if shared, will lead to faster and wider realisation through your conclusions and I hope you draw maximum benefit from your work.”
The conference was attended by over 120 participants including representatives of 1520 top-management of state & regulatory & accreditation bodies, scientific technical centres and railway companies.
