The 2nd UIC RAME Educational Seminar on Railway Safety was held on 4-5 May 2010 in Tehran, Iran (University of Science and Technology) as an activity planned in the 2009-2011 Action Plan of the UIC Regional Assembly for the Middle-East.

This seminar followed the 1st UIC/RAI Workshop on “Railway Safety Issues” (held in connection with a workshop on “Railway Construction, Maintenance and Operations in Desert Conditions”) on 28-29 January 2008 in Tehran. It was prepared in close cooperation between UIC (Rail Safety Division and several UIC members such as SNCF or rail safety authorities such as EBA from Germany), the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI) and the UIC Middle-East Regional Office based in Tehran and managed by Iranian Railways.

The main objectives of this “Railway Safety” activity included in the UIC Middle-East Action Plan are as follows:

Develop a Safety Database for the Middle-East railways based on the methodology already developed within UIC (mainly by European railways) for the UIC Safety Database
Exchange on the next steps towards the setting-up of a Safety Philosophy and then a Safety Management System (SMS) within Middle-Eastern railway companies
Designate a group of safety experts from Middle-Eastern Railways (RAME Safety Experts WG) to further monitor this work (with technical support from UIC Rail Safety Division) and produce deliverables (e.g. publication of guidelines, recommendations, etc.)
The 2nd UIC RAME Educational Seminar was attended by around 100 participants, among them railway experts, researchers or university representatives from Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.