High-Speed Congress, Intercity and High-Speed Committee and related meetings were held in Beijing from 17 – 20 June. UIC was represented by Marc Guigon, Director of the Passenger department, Paolo De Cicco, Senior Advisor for High-Speed Rail, Francis Bedel, Chief Digital Officer, Kenzo Fujita, Senior Advisor for High-Speed Rail and Michel Leboeuf, UIC Consultant for High-Speed Rail.

IRS: A meeting on IRS development was held on the morning of 17 June. IRSs are coordinated between two different UIC forums: the Passenger Global Forum and the Rail System Forum.
The main points covered during the meeting were as follows:

• IRS 60661: “Dynamic integration tests and trial operations before revenue operation” has been sent for publication
• IRS 60673: “Implementation of a high-speed line – design phase” was published on 14 March 2019
• IRS 60675: “Implementation of a high-speed line – operations phase” has been sent for publication

4 further IRSs (60671, 60672, 60673 and 60674) will be published following formal approval by the Rail System Forum.

Alliance of Universities for High-Speed Rail
Professor Wang Jiaqiong, President of Beijing Jiaotong University, will replace Professor Ning Bin as President following Professor Bin’s death. On behalf of the President, the meeting was chaired by Mr Guan Zhongliang, Vice-President and PhD Professor at Beijing Jiaotong University. Professor Anson Jack, Director of International Railway Benchmarking at the University of Birmingham, was elected as Vice-President. Professor Mr Andrzej Szarata, Dean of the University of Krakow and Mr Shinya Hanaoka, Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, also represented the universities in the alliance steering committee.

A number of progress reports were presented:

• “HSR Productivity” by Professor Wu Jianhong of BJTU
• “HSR Equity” will be presented by Professor Francesca Pagliara (University of Naples) at the next meeting in Krakow
• “HSR marginal cost and value of time” will be presented by Professor Andrzej Szarata (Krakow University of Technology), at the next meeting in Krakow
• “EU-CHINA” will start on a voluntary basis on Universities’ responsibility

A level 3 training session is to be developed jointly by UIC and the Alliance, and will involve using the content of IRSs for high-speed rail in dedicated training courses.

Southwest Jiaotong University is organising a hackathon within the framework of the World High Speed Congress (WHSC).

The competition of students for the WCHS will be managed by BJTU.

Intercity and High-Speed Committee (IcHSC)
Mr Andrew McNaughton, current Chair of the Intercity and High-Speed Committee, has advised that he will step down from his position as chair in summer 2019. A call for candidates has been issued; however, no candidates has been put forward by UIC members. Marc Guigon warmly thanked Andrew McNaughton for his unwavering commitment and extensive work devoted to the Intercity and High-Speed Committee over the past number of years.

Mr Guigon has asked Mr Huo Baoshi to act as Chair on an interim basis.

The following points were discussed during the meeting:

• Reports were provided on all activities: IRSs, Alliance of Universities for High-Speed Rail, World High-Speed Congress
• The book “High-Speed World” was presented by the editor, “Langages du Sud”
• The Atlas, a book containing all relevant data on high-speed rail, was presented. The Atlas is available from the UIC ETF online shop in A3 and A4 format. For details, please see https://www.shop-etf.com/fr/catalogsearch/result/?q=%27Atlas%20High-Speed%27
• High-speed development plans and implementation of projects were presented
• Reports were provided on the following projects:
  • HSR comparison study
  • D2D and autonomous vehicles - Door-to-door solutions for integrated and sustainable mobility: the Italian experience (Trenitalia)
  • EU-China: project status
  • High-speed mix
    Study on “Operations under difficult conditions – low temperatures and snow” - co-operative workshop held at UIC HQ on 14 May. A workshop was also held on the afternoon of 20 June in Beijing

A short video describing the activity of the IcHS Committee is available at the following address: https://uic.org/highspeed#PRESENTATION-OF-THE-UIC-INTERCITY-AND-HIGH-SPEED-COMMITTEE

World High-Speed Congress (WHSC): scientific and organising committees
In addition to UIC representatives, CR was represented by Mr Qian Zhengyu, Deputy Director-General, Department of Science, Technology and IT Applications, and CARS was represented by Mr Qi Xiangchun, Director, Scientific and Technological Information Research Institute, along with their teams. Mr Mohammed Smouni and Mr Ali El Karram of ONCF also participated in the meetings as observers, with ONCF due to organise the next Congress in Morocco.

The conclusions from the meeting were as follows:

• Date and location of the Congress: 30 June – 2 July 2020 in Beijing (exact location to be determined)
• The call for papers for parallel sessions will be launched at the end of June 2019. Responses are to be sent by the end of October 2019. The speakers will be selected in November 2019 and announced to the participants in early 2020
• A hackathon and student competition are being organised by Chinese universities
• The Congress logo will be available in July 2019
• The website will be available in mid-July 2019: uichighspeed.org

The full programme for the WHSC was reviewed in detail: opening ceremony, parallel sessions, round tables, closing ceremony, etc.

The next series of meetings will be organised in Krakow from 9-12 September 2019. A workshop on Hyperloop will be held on 12 September.