Due to the fact that nowadays several countries – with or without previous experience in the railways – plan to start their national high speed railway projects, a strong need has been identified to collect, generalise and structure the wealth of experience of many UIC members in order to provide a detailed and professional description on how to develop such projects.
This study will help beginner countries to start projects and will also help answer the most common questions such as the most appropriate way of organising a company in order to accomplish the tasks of a new project, as well as the project’s legal framework, procedure and phases of the process, etc.
The study has been developed by two important consultants with a broad experience in high speed development: Sener from Spain and Ingérop from France, led by the High Speed Group under the technical guidance of Michel Leboeuf (SNCF), Chairman of the Intercity and High Speed Committee, and Iñaki Barrón, Director of the UIC Passenger and High Speed Department.
After analysing a range of existing documentation on procedures, technical standards, legal frameworks and basic rules required during the different phases of high speed project implementation, and drawing on the experience of all UIC High Speed members, a final report was completed and presented at the latest World Congress on High Speed in July 2012 in Philadelphia.
This first manual will probably be extended and completed – following a decision by the UIC Intercity and High Speed Committee – with other UIC High Speed handbooks.
In addition to the large series of UIC High Speed work and reports, this important and useful document is now available free of charge on the UIC website:
