The UIC Safety Platform Plenary meeting took place on 22 October 2015 in Paris.
25 representatives from 15 railway companies attended the meeting, among others East Japan Railways (JRE), Russian Railways (RZD) and Iranian Railways (RAI). This meeting was preceded by the Steering Group meeting on 21 October and was led by its Chairman Peter Kleinschuster (ÖBB).
During the “informal session” (the first part of this Steering Group meeting) the participants were informed about significant developments in the field of railway safety, accidents and incidents.
The participants of the plenary meeting were informed by the chairmen of the following Safety Platform Working Groups about the results of their work items in 2015 and the planned activities in 2016:
- System Safety Management Group”(SSMG)/CER Safety Support Group
- Safety Performance Group (SPG)/Safety Database (SDB)
- International Railway Safety Network (IRSN)
- Human Factors WG
- Occupational Health and Safety Group (OHSG)
Information was also presented about the progress of the following three common Task Forces, established this year, to be finalised in 2016:
- Signals passed at danger (SPAD)
- Safe contractor management
- Safety culture and safety management
Olivier Georger, UIC Safety Database manager, presented the UIC Safety Database Report 2015, which is available on the UIC website http://safetydb.uic.org
Isabelle Fonverne, Senior Safety Advisor informed the meeting about worldwide activities on Level Crossing Safety:
- International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD) on 3 June 2015, next edition on 10/11 June 2016 respectively hosted by LDZ in Riga and Operation Lifesaver Estonia (OLE) in Tallinn: visit www.ilcad.org
- The Global Level Crossing & Trespass Symposium, hosted by TRAFI in Helsinki 12 –16 June 2016
- UNECE Group of experts on safety at level crossings, 6th session, Geneva, 5 – 6 November 2015
Peter Gerhardt presented the following safety events at the global level:
- UIC Asian-Pacific Railway Safety workshop, Kuala Lumpur, 19 November 2015
- UNECE workshop on railway safety, Geneva 24 November 2015,
- supported by UIC
José Pires, Senior Advisor UIC Security Unit, and Grigore Havârneanu, PhD Research Advisor, reported on the “RESTRAIL Tool Box, and on EC founded projects on security with interfaces to railway safety.
Peter Gerhardt gave feedback on the “International Railway Safety Council” (IRSC), which took place from 4 – 9 October 2015 in Johannesburg:
The next IRSC will take place from 2 – 7 October 2016 in Paris, joint organised by SNCF and EPSF, supported by UIC: http://www.irsc2016.org (available soon).
The participants were also informed about the preparation of a common workshop with the “European Federation of Railway Trackworks Company” (EFRTC) on the subject of “Safety protection on the track during work” (EN 16704), which will take place from 18 – 19 February 2016 at UIC, Paris.
The participants confirmed the proposed Safety Platform Work programme and budget for 2016.
The UIC Safety Platform Plenary meeting in 2016 is scheduled to be held on
9 November at Paris UIC HQ.
