On 15 March 2017, ONCF organised its yearly seminar on railway safety at its headquarters in Rabat, Morocco. This year, the central topic focused on accidents to persons, in a global context where train-person collisions account for most fatalities and injuries in the whole railway system. More than 70 managers involved in railway safety at ONCF participated in this event. In its continuous effort to improve safety, ONCF invited three UIC experts to provide keynote speeches related to the central topic of the seminar.

Jacques Colliard (Head of UIC Security Division) opened the programme and spoke about the interactions between safety and security. Then he gave an overview of the UIC security activity and the 2016 Additional Security Program consisting of three major outputs. He highlighted the necessary interactive work between UIC HQ and its members, specifically ONCF in order to answer the needs and requests in appropriate ways.

Grigore Havarneanu (Research Advisor Security Division) then gave a 90-minute lecture about the prevention of railway suicide and trespass. His presentation was based on the lessons learned in the RESTRAIL EU project (www.restrail.eu) and on its afferent toolbox (www.restrail.eu/toolbox). This toolbox is openly available for all UIC members.

Furthermore, François Jeannot (former SNCF expert) closed the morning session with a presentation about the Safety Management System (SMS) and the management of safety risks. The three presentations were very interactive, with many questions and comments from the audience.

In the afternoon session, Mr M. Smouni (ONCF Development Director, representing Mr M. Rabie Khalie, (General Director of ONCF) took note of the most important points of the seminar. He then awarded some of the present managers for their initiative to improve safety in the year 2016, as well as some collaborators who proved their involvement and vigilance on safety during their tasks.