Within the framework of the “Transport Week” the III Congress of Railway Constructors was held on 5 December 2017.
The event was organised by the Union of Railway constructors (SSZD) with the support of the Russian Public Organization “Delovaya Rossiya” and OAO “Russian Railways”.
The General Partner of the Congress was the Group of Companies 1520 – one of the largest Russian companies whose main competencies are concentrated in the design and construction of railways.
Participants of the III Congress were representatives of federal legislative and executive bodies, JSC Russian Railways, business associations, industry transport universities and research institutes, Russian and foreign organisations of the railway sector. In 2017, the Union of Railway Constructors celebrates the decade of its activity and the III Congress was timed to coincide with this event.
The participants welcomed the words of greeting delivered by the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov, the General Director of JSC Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov, the Director General of UIC Jean-Pierre Loubinoux and the Chairman of the Russian Trade Union of Railway Workers and Transport Constructors Nikolai Nikiforov.
At the plenary session “Railway Construction: Current State and Growth Trends”, the issues of state policy in the field of railway development, law-making and norm-setting initiatives of the construction complex, the results of work at the largest railway construction sites and prospective projects, trends in technological renewal of railway construction organizations, as well as organisation of procurement of contract works in JSCo “Russian Railways” were presented.
In his speech, Deputy General Director of JSC Russian Railways, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Belarusian Railways Oleg Toni, said that the development of radial directions will be a new direction. Mr Toni noted that this is a fundamentally new approach to the organisation of a suburban and urban communication in the Moscow region that creates opportunities for traffic to travel from one direction to another through the city centre, to connect remote metropolitan areas, to shorten the time for passengers en route and the number of transplants, to reduce load on the subway and train stations of the city.
In the panel discussion “Application of Information Modelling Technologies for the Creation of Rail Transport Infrastructure Objects”, the main focus was placed on BIM-technologies. The international experience of the introduction of such products was presented by the expert of UIC, Airy Magnien, and the deputy head of the Digital Continuity Department of the SNCF, Alain Jeanmair.
President of the Union of Railway Constructors Gennady Talashkin noted that the introduction of information modelling technologies on the railway transport infrastructure will allow all those involved to reach a new technological level, shorten the time and cost of creating and operating facilities, improve process control and productivity, avoid most conflicts and errors in planning, design and construction. For a large-scale transition to BIM, it is necessary to solve a number of system issues, such as the introduction of modern software and hardware systems, training specialists, the choice of formats for exchanging digital data, creating BIM libraries, linking models to a high-precision coordinate system, addressing storage and cyber-security of digital data, uniform requirements for all participants of the process.
The need to strengthen international cooperation of railway construction organisations, aimed at sharing advanced technologies and experience in the successful implementation of infrastructure projects, training of personnel, harmonisation of technical regulation documents, removal of barriers and restrictions for joint work was discussed at the round table "International interaction of railway organisations, integration of technologies and participation in foreign projects.
