At the invitation of SZDC (Czech Railway Infrastructure Administration), a meeting of the New Technology working group was held in Prague on 16 October 2015
This was the opportunity to bring together rail security representatives (French Railways SNCF, Dutch operator ARIVA (DBAG Group), Japan Railways JR East and West, Slovakian Railways, and the Czech railway infrastructure) and to discuss the future goals of this permanent work of the security platform.
After the welcoming of the participants by Mr Pavel Sury, SZDC Director General, Mr Srb, Director of SZDC Crisis Management Department and new chairman of the UIC New Technology working group, underlined the importance of safety and security on the railway and the need to share experiences regarding the application of new and progressive technologies in this field.
Anna Kodysova, Head of SZDC International Department, then gave a presentation on the action plan and the different technologies that are currently being implemented to increase the protection of the Czech rail infrastructure. Three main solutions were discussed:
- Implementation of line protection detection systems (Acoustic Sensing system)
- Implementation of an automatic warning system
- Installation of sophisticated regional and central supervisory systems
The past activities of the working group that was chaired by RFI (Italian railways) from 2008 to 2014 were then presented to the participants by UIC. After a discussion with all the attendees it was decided to divide the group’s activity into five main areas of focus:
- Exchange of best practice
- Follow-up development of security technologies
- Research, development and innovation
- Define requirements and constraints of railways
- Suggest new topic for future research
- Definition of standards for rail security technology when possible
- Cooperation on technical basis with EU institutions and relevant bodies in close relationship with CER and EIM …
Several presentations were then given by the participants:
- Security cameras inside the passenger compartments of bullet trains (JR-East)
- Cameras to detect drunken behaviour (JR-West)
- Front Forward CCTV project and follow up due to Thalys train incident (Arriva)
- Emergency number and possible development (SNCF)
- Anti-graffiti technologies (Anti Graffiti Rail)
The next meeting will be organised in the first part of 2016 and will be the opportunity to organise a technical visit of the new line protection detection system that is currently being implemented on the Czech infrastructure. It was also proposed by Mr Srb to organise a common workshop on technology and level crossings.
All the presentations are available in the dedicated security workspace of the UIC extranet system at http://extranet.uic.org/
