In the first week of April, the annual meetings of the working sub-groups and plenary meeting of the RIC/A Special Group, chaired by Mr Philippe Vie (SNCF), were held at UIC. The RIC/A is a Special Group of UIC in the sense of the Statutes, the members of which may be UIC members or non-members. This SG manages the RIC and RIA Agreements and the Agreement on Technical Inspections of vehicles (ATI).
For information, the RIC Agreement regulates the exchange of passenger trains consisting of coaches and the RIA Agreement regulates the exchange of self-propelled units. These Agreements also govern the conditions of use and treatment of passenger rolling stock between respective RUs and the keepers who adhere to these Agreements.
General information concerning the evolution in the passenger sector, in particular the Passenger Forum, was presented by Mr Marc Guigon, Director of the UIC Passenger Department. The Passenger Forum will meet in Toledo, Spain on 12 July 2019 and also aims to address technical topics, such as RIC/A.
Amendments to these Agreements are presented and discussed at the RIC/A annual meetings.
One of the imperative amendments, also imposed by the European regulation in the framework of the cooperation between the RUs, is the project to harmonise and dematerialise quality controls of passenger rolling stock.
A common computerised system enables the following:
- Have an image representative of the quality achieved by an RU or a holder with regard to the whole of its fleet exchanged within the framework of the RIC or RIA Agreements
- Scrupulously respect the control process defined in the QMS since the controller relies on the software
- Have an identical presentation of results to all members
- Quickly inform the members concerned in the event of serious defects to equipment
The participants, taking into account the advantages of such a computerised system, gave the mandate to continue the work in order to propose its possible implementation during the next year.
The progressive application will soon allow to monitor the quality of the rolling stock exchanged in the cooperation, in order to maintain a good quality between the signatories by quickly taking the necessary common measures for an improvement of the situation.
