UIC, its African region – chaired by Mr Mohamed Rabie Khlie, CEO of Moroccan Railways (ONCF) – and ONCF itself, have announced their support for the “Africa Express” mission, which will take the shape of a tour of Africa by train, starting in Tangier.

The aim of this 20,000 km train journey is to study renewable energy projects in the countries visited. 2012 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All and the “Africa Express” initiative is backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The aim of this mission is to highlight initiatives in the field of energy, to identify their key success factors, replicability and durability, and to attract national and international investors to implement and reproduce these projects. A White Paper will be released at the end of the mission to promote good practice and target energy stakeholders in Africa (international donors, governments, NGOs, companies and national electric power companies, etc.). A film targeting the general public will also show the main issues and aspects of the mission.

The “Africa Express” mission is sponsored by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who said “we need community initiatives that respect our future and our environment. I am fully supportive of the “Africa Express” mission as it is a project that corresponds perfectly to this need.”

“Africa Express” is bolstered by a Support Committee composed of a number of personalities involved in energy and the environment, energy experts, and representatives of institutions, NGOs and companies. Among these partners, reference should be made to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME), the French Development Agency (AFD), Schneider Electric, EDF, Electriciens sans Frontières, GoodPlanet, Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).

UIC Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux “welcomes the fact that the train – as the sustainable mode of transport par excellence – has been chosen as the medium for this tour of Africa dedicated to renewable energy projects.” He reiterated that “the aims of the “Africa Express” mission are mutually supportive of those of the international railway community, which are to develop transport that is sustainable, environmentally-friendly and energy efficient, contributing to the economic and social development of the regions through which the train will pass. It is in fact the aim of the UIC African region to coordinate the efforts of all the players, with a view to developing a system such as this to serve the African continent.”

UIC hosted a special meeting of the international Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLOCAT) to discuss how to make sustainable transport a high priority for the Rio+20 conference. This is a coalition of over 50 sustainable transport organisations including UIC, UITP and many transport institutes and other organisations, all of whom promote or support public transport (rail, metro, bus), cycling and walking).

The meeting discussed the status of the Rio+20 discussions and how organisations can still engage and influence the process. UIC itself is fully engaged with the Rio+20 process – please see the UIC website for more information: www.uic.org

The UIC Network Noise held a meeting at the Infrabel office in Brussels on 7 February 2012. It was attended by 14 people representing a number of European railway organisations. The group discussed and agreed a new organisation structure and the formation of a separate group focused on vibration. Updates were provided on current UIC noise projects, future EC noise policy, progress of the EuropeTrain project and noise management by members. A shortlist of future projects was also agreed. The agenda, minutes and presentation from the meeting are available on the Noise Network section of Ovidentia (UIC Extranet). The next meeting will be held in Helsinki on 12 September 2012.

Mauro Moretti, CEO of Italian railway group Ferrovie Italiane (FS) and UIC Vice-Chairman, was unanimously re-elected as Chairman of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) on 9 February. Meeting in Brussels, the CER General Assembly also confirmed the newly composed CER Management Committee.

CER Chairman Mauro Moretti has held this position since January 2009 and the CER Management Committee shall take office for a two-year term ending in December 2014. The members of the new CER Management Committee are Roger Cobbe (Board Member, ATOC), Vladimir Ľupták (Director General, ZSR), Jan Sundling (Chairman of the Board, ASTOC), Maria Wasiak (CEO, PKP), Marc Descheemaecker (CEO, SNCB), Jérôme Gallot (CEO, Veolia Transdev), Rüdiger Grube (CEO, DB), Christian Kern (CEO, ÖBB), Bert Meerstadt (President Executive Board, NS), Andreas Meyer (CEO, SBB), Guillaume Pepy (President, SNCF), Kaido Simmermann (Chairman of the Mangement Board and Managing Director, EVR), Ion Stoichescu (Director General, CFR), and Ferenc Szarvas (CEO, MAV).

After thanking the delegates of the General Assembly for their renewed confidence in his work, Mauro Moretti stated “the priorities of my mandate are: Completion of the EU rail market; TEN–T revision and structural funds 2014–2020; Financial architecture and PSO; Sustainable transport policy; European high speed network”.

In the framework of the General Assembly, European Commissioner László Andor, responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, joined the official signing ceremony of the “European Charter for the development of social and societal initiatives in train stations”. He addressed the audience stating that “railway companies’ efforts to help find better solutions for socially excluded or homeless people around the stations are a good example of corporate social responsibility.”(Source: CER)

UIC warmly congratulates Mauro Moretti on being re-elected as CER Chairman.

On 6 February the EuropeTrain returned to Minden after two and a half weeks and ca. 14,000 km of successful operation in Switzerland and Germany without any trouble or incidents.

The “Europe Train” test train, which has been travelling across Europe since December 2010 to test low-noise brakes – equipped with composite “LL” brake blocks” – before it goes into series production to retrofit the existing European freight wagon fleet, has completed its eleventh run through Switzerland and Germany. The previous run took place in Belgium and in the Netherlands last December.

“Europe Train” is a project managed by UIC on behalf of the international railway community. To date, 29 railway companies, four industry suppliers and the sector organisations UIC, CER and EIM have signed the resolution for the preparation of “Europe Train”. This UIC project is managed by Mr Johannes Gräber from Deutsche Bahn.

After the train left the DB Systemtechnik test centre in Minden for Basel via the Rhine Valley on 20 January 2012, it was transferred to Rotkreuz (50 km north of Erstfeld) and down to Chiasso on 22 January. During the Transalpine Loop in Switzerland, the EuropeTrain shuttled seven times (one cycle a day) from Rotkreuz to Chiasso, back to Erstfeld and finally to Chiasso and back to Rotkreuz – crossing the slopes of St. Gotthard each time. Once again, SBB Cargo organised some special braking tests on steep gradients. On 29 January the train returned to Minden for several kilometres on a flat winter loop in Germany. From Minden the EuropeTrain shuttled seven times to Rostock and back. The final return to Minden was on 6 February.

Directly after the return, the measurements of wheels and brake blocks were taken as usual. Before the next run, the EuropeTrain’s International Analysis Team (IAT) will discuss the results again, define further activities and in particular decide which wagons will participate in the next run. In parallel the second edition of the interim report is under final discussion among the experts of the project team and will be issued by March 2012.

Train operation will start again on 2 March 2012 for the twelfth run, with a second run on the Scandinavian winter loop. The return is planned for the end of March 2012.

Pictures and current information on the EuropeTrain project can be found under http://EuropeTrain.uic.org

“Safety is our highest priority and we will continue to work to create a safer operating environment for employees, passengers and communities,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “We have made dramatic progress in improving safety, but there is always more we can do to reduce incidents.” The proposed rule would require each railway or contractor with safety-related railway employees to develop a training program designating the qualifications of each employee and them submit that program for Federal Railroad Administration approval. Employers would conduct periodic oversight of their own employees to determine compliance and conduct annual written reviews of their training programs to close performance gaps. The proposed rule is a requirement of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

“Well-designed training programs have the potential to further reduce risk in the railroad environment,” said Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph C. Szabo. “We believe that better training can reduce the number of accidents, particularly those caused by human factors, which account for the vast majority of reportable accidents each year.”

Under the Federal Railroad Administration Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), training would apply to relevant railway rules and procedures used to implement those federal railroad safety laws. The NRPM was developed with the input from officials in numerous federal and state government agencies, industry, and labor. The NPRM is available at http://www.fra.dot.gov/rcc/pages/fp....

(Source: Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation)

Throughout February RFF (French railway infrastructure manager), in partnership with SNCF, is delivering an awareness campaign aimed at passengers to remind them of the safety guidelines at stops with footpaths at grade. In France, 936 stops out of 3100 provide footpaths at grade for the public. A local campaign has been launched at the stations and stops concerned to raise awareness among passengers about vigilance and safety guidelines. As part of the campaign’s positive and friendly motto, an owl encourages passengers to “keep an eye out” before crossing the railway tracks. For more information on the campaign please visit:

http://www.rff.fr/fr/gestion-page-d...

The INESS project launched in October 2008 will be coming to an end in March 2012. To mark the end of the project and present its results the INESS Final Conference was held at UIC Paris on 3 February 2012. The free one-day conference attracted 135 participants from the railway signalling sector and procurement professionals, IMs, industry executives, transport ministries representing European governments and European standardisation bodies and authorities. The morning session included presentations on project results and lessons learned.

The meeting was opened by UIC Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, who extended a warm welcome to all the participants and key speakers. He explained the importance of the INESS project. Mr Loubinoux underlined in his speech that INESS responds to the stringent needs of railway signalling in the interlocking domain. UIC will commit to a follow-up project using the INESS specifications to build an INESS interlocking functional prototype. He confirmed that UIC is also strongly committed to playing its role of railway coordinator and pre-standardisation body in order to enforce the INESS specification as a norm and later as a TSI; will further maintain all INESS results in a dedicated platform and, finally, that UIC will have its specialists available to enable the results to be appropriately disseminated and exploited further. Michal Klima, EC Project Coordinator, underlined the importance of the INESS project in the signalling domain with 30 partners from the railways, the supply industry, research, academia, 1062 person*months, 102 deliverables and 16,6 million Euro with 10 million Euro of co-funding from the EC. INESS Project Manager Emmanuel Buseyne, UIC, explained INESS’ background, its scope, the new specification and design concept emphasising the benefits of using a model-based approach, and demonstrating that INESS has achieved a complete specification work and tool chain fully exploitable for the implementation of an INESS IxL. The keynote speech of the supply industry was delivered by Maurizio Rosi, Ansaldo STS, who explained the importance of railways and industry working together and making the project a success. He confirmed that INESS’ outcomes are solid and fit to become the foundation of a further research project; the commitment of most of its participants is proven by their willingness to be together in a new EU-financed project, if ESAR receives the desired green light. The involvement of NSAs and MSs can overcome some difficulties in T&C and SaCa; a closer approach with ERA can fine-tune the strategy of the migration approach.

The railways’ point of view was presented by ADIF’s representative Jorge Iglesias, who demonstrated the main results achieved by INESS including IxL ERTMS Compliant Common Core; Functional Architecture; Three Interface Definitions (IxL-RBC, IxL-CLC and IxL-IxL); IxL Data Model; Harmonised Safety Case Process (WS G); Harmonised Procedures for Testing and Commissioning (first approach). Dr Iglesias underlined that the ESAR project proposal is the best way to exploit the INESS results and that the final results of the ESAR project will demonstrate the benefits and feasibility of both the extended core of requirements and interfaces specified in INESS in order to be enforced as a TSI by ERA.

The meeting was continued with the presentation of results by workstream leaders. Dr Bernd Elsweiler from DB Netz explained that INESS showed fields for optimisation and standardisation. Now we will need appropriate cooperation models to achieve the identified cost saving potentials. Tom Stein, Bombardier, provided explanations on EUDRI; Wendi Mennen, ProRail, further confirmed that her workstream achieved the goal of an ERTMS compliant common kernel, including a model of the common kernel and achieved the goal of having available methods and tools for verification and validation. Jorge Gamelas, Trafikverket, explained the work results of Functional Architecture. Neil Barnatt, NetworkRail, presented the conclusions of work for Testing & Commissioning, including the positive effects of a reduction/removal of on-site testing. These were: a combination of techniques will produce the optimal answer; techniques are not mutually exclusive; a generalised method of assessing the effectiveness of testing has been designed; reduce reliance on bespoke designs, and he explained impact and applicability. Geltmar Von Buxhoeveden, TUBS, and Carsten Trog, showed the work results of the safety case process, explaining that formalisation of CENELEC norms helped to understand the process; GSN method significantly helped to: bring integrity to the safety case argumentation; save time and money by streamlining project meetings and system design in new projects as well as in migration projects. The combination of GSN Tool and DMS makes information very accessible to project management, system engineers and developers, safety assessors and customers.

The General Assembly was followed by two sessions of six interactive workshops including the presentation of the INESS Business model; Who needs EUDRI – how to find a European unified description of railway infrastructures; verification and validation of the common core requirements; INESS system architecture and interfaces – method for evaluating different fallback solutions; testing concepts and how to apply a reduced data set to advantage; improving the safety case development: workflow improvement through tool support. In conclusion, George Barbu, UIC, INESS EU coordinator underlined that INESS is, after ETCS, the most important project in the domain of signalling and train control in Europe and that INESS is a unique chance for railways and industry to conceive together the future of interlocking technology.

The 10th UIC ERTMS World Conference will focus its attention and efforts on the roll-out of interoperable ERTMS onboard systems in Europe and, more generally, throughout the world. Initially developed for the European network, ERTMS has become a benchmark for many railway networks around the globe, hence the overarching theme of the conference: “ERTMS – Global Dimensions”.

The Organising Committee of the UIC ERTMS World Conference has finalised the conference programme.

Key speakers at this 10th edition will be:

• Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Transport (invited)
• Karel Vinck, European Coordinator ERTMS
• Marcel Verslype, Executive Director of the European Rail Agency (ERA)
• Gunnar Malm, CEO of the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket)
• Michele Elia, CEO of the Italian Infrastructure Manager (RFI/FS)
• Jean Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General
• Libor Lochman, Executive Director the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER)
• Michel Van Liefferinge, General Manager UNISIG (Association of the European Rail Signalling Industry)

Some interesting topics that will be presented:

• ERTMS Regional presented by Per-Erik Ingels, technical coordinator of ERTMS at Trafikverket (Sweden) as a cost-effective solution for low density regional lines worldwide
• OpenETCS presented by Dr Klaus-Rüdiger Hase, Manager ETCS Onboard Program, DB Netz AG ( Germany) Speeding up the process of bug fixing in ERTMS software by using formal methods, creating an “open proof” software and give freedom to use, analyse, change and distribute it: this is the challenge of this new project funded in the frame of Information Technology for European Advancement (ITEA 2)
• Challenges to the California High Speed Train Project in Implementing ERTMS presented by Ibrahim Muftic, Train Control Lead, CHSTP, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc. United States
• A joint presentation by TCDD (Turkish Railways) and Invensys on the Turkish Experience with ERTMS, demonstrating that it is a key element of its network modernisation
• The future of telecommunications for ETCS focusing on GPRS and IP solutions for railways, a presentation by Dan Mandoc, Senior Advisor UIC and Chairman of ERIG.

ERTMS 2012 Exhibition A large number of exhibitors will present their solutions and technologies. Among them:Trafikverket and UIC, Thales, Invensys Rail, Siemens Transportation, Mermec SpA, Ansaldo STS, Bombardier Transportation, GE Transportation, Kapsch CarrierCom AG, Multitel, Frequentis AG, ERSA, Pixy et ERTMS Solutions, AZD Praha SRO, Sagem Communications, Wenzel, EurailPress

ERTMS Regional test trip

ERTMS Regional is the result of international collaboration within UIC. The Regional system has been developed from the specifications to meet the requirements for a traffic control system for low density lines. Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration, is the first railway administration to have used this specification to develop and to implement ERTMS Regional. The ERTMS Regional test trip, held on 24 April and coordinated by Trafikverket and Bombardier, will show how the ERTMS concept is applied to achieve optimum solutions, even for reduced infrastructure cost on low traffic and regional lines. Places will be limited to 400 and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

There are still some exhibition booths and a few sponsoring opportunities left! : http://www.ertms-conference2012.com...

For more information and online registration, please visit the ERTMS 2012 conference website: http://www.ertms-conference2012.com

Contact for exhibition and sponsoring: ertms2012@congrex.com

In order to prepare the 2012 UIC HIGHSPEED World Congress that will take place in Philadelphia in July, UIC is organising the 2nd HIGHSPEED Interaction Workshop in Taipei from 18 – 20 April 2012.

Following the successful first edition in Korea in 2009, this second edition will address the specific issue of high speed rail system maintenance. The event is being organised by UIC and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC), and is open to UIC members around the world.

As the market of high speed rail and maintenance becomes more global, the current, future and potential high speed rail operators and high-speed rail maintenance experts are invited to discuss their technical approach, experiences and expectations in various fields such as the development of standards, pre-competitive benchmarking, identification and facilitation of possible areas of cooperation.

This 2nd edition will consist of alternative plenary sessions, panel sessions and round tables, addressing the maintenance of both infrastructure and rolling stock. It will serve as an exchange platform where participants will be able to contribute as well as obtain other points of view on global and particular aspects of HSR system maintenance. Among the specific objectives, the needs and requirements with regard to the maintenance of specific systems will be collected.

Strong support from infrastructure managers and railway operators who have already implemented high speed rail systems, and who have gained relevant experience in this field, is expected in order to enhance the overall value of this initiative. The results of the workshop will be addressed to the UIC 2012 HIGHSPEED World Congress in July in Philadelphia.

This workshop will be also a platform where high speed rail suppliers and high speed rail operators can meet and network. Railway manufacturers, railway undertakings, infrastructure companies, consultants, the supply industry and service companies are invited to register in order to share their respective experience and expected services.

The programme will also include a technical tour of maintenance facilities proposed by THSRC.

The call for papers is open to all participants. The organisers invite you to submit an abstract based on the themes of the workshop no later than 29 February 2012.

All applications must be sent to segeral@uic.org

Details on the workshop venue as well as guidelines for speakers are available at: http://www.uic.org/spip.php?rubrique2042

RENFE carried 468 million travellers in 2011, up 3% compared to the previous year. This growth is equally shared between both commercial services (AVE trains and long distance) and public services (local and medium distance).

RENFE carried more than 17.3 million tonnes in 2011, up 7.8% compared to 2010. 14.4 million tonnes have been carried in domestic traffic and the remainder in international traffic, which means a 13% growth.

(Source: Renfe)