Last week, UIC took part in Rail Live 2025 in Madrid, a key gathering for railway professionals across Europe – especially so this year as it now incorporates special sessions dedicated to customers (formerly part of the Passenger World festival). Several UIC experts presented their work and shared their visions of innovation, sustainability and the digital transformation of the rail sector.
Vanessa Perez moderated the roundtable “Unlocking Seamless Multimodality in Europe”, alongside representatives from SBB, Benerail, Renfe, UIC and Nommon, discussing solutions to enable seamless multimodal mobility across the continent based on the work carried out as part of the Sesar project, MultiModX.
Maria Gusarova delivered her presentation on “Gender-responsive design in railway stations: Creating inclusive mobility hubs”, highlighting the collaborative work of several UIC departments to promote accessible and inclusive railway environments.
David Sarfatti presented “Seamless travel: the UIC Open Multi-Modal Toolkit (OMMT)”, detailing how this innovative technical framework aims to facilitate door-to-door mobility through better integration of transport modes. He highlighted the toolkit’s potential to support operators, enhance the passenger experience and accelerate the adoption of harmonised multimodal solutions at the international level.
Michele Gesualdi contributed to the panel on artificial intelligence in rail and presented “Innovation in high-speed rail systems: HSR, Maglev, Hyperloop”, comparing the maturity, performance and operational perspectives of these three technologies.
Bertrand Minary provided strategic insights on multimodality with rail as backbone of multimodality. This requires the standards of the rail sector to be interoperable with the standards of other modes (e.g. NDC for air or transmodel). At the same time, it also requires the open and intentional inclusion of new actors in the search for rail solutions, which is the aim of the Open Multi Modal Toolkit (OMMT).
Fabian Figueroa contributed by sharing his technical expertise, highlighting the advantages of rail freight, combined transport and the progress of multimodal demonstrations under the ZEFES project.
Rosa Casquero spoke about the future of axle load management, presenting the outcomes of the Dynmeasure project, which will lead to a new UIC IRS. She also moderated a roundtable on digitalisation and sustainability in asset management as part of the European FP3-Iam4Rail project.
Francisco Cabrera presented “Advancing railway safety with UIC’s HARMO COSMERA project”, showcasing the project’s progress in harmonising and enhancing safety management systems across the rail sector.
This event provided UIC with an opportunity to highlight its expertise and flagship projects, while strengthening dialogue with major industry players on concrete solutions for safer, more sustainable and more digitalised railways.
