International Railway Union Has Presented Its Annual Report

World railway cooperation organization, UIC, has presently 152 members, from five continents. Annually, International Railway Union presents a report that includes the managing points in order to implement UIC Rail Plan in every sector of activity within railway.

UIC president, Miguel Corsini, wanted to stress in his speech before the presentation of the Annual Report for 2000 that: "the tendencies from the last years in point of rail transport development show that these ones are going to become the base of the future transport system, efficient and modern, tendency that became more and more true, practically, on every continent". Railway companies invest more and more in research in order to obtain benefits of technology innovation, and industry development in the field aims to gain many markets with competitive and attractive products, which brought an incontestable success to the railway in comparison to the other competitive means of transportation. And the railway transport success will be increased in the years to come because it becomes more and more obvious the fact that: railway system is the only transport mode able to offer transporting capacities more than substantial, needing only a few adjustments to align the system to higher standards in the safety filed, and, practically, without affecting the environment", added Mr. Miguel Corsini.
Annual report represents a synthesis of the directions aimed during 2000 in each of the most important sectors of the world railway activity.
Thus, there is only one data base in passengers transport for international train timetable (UIC MERITS Project). There have been also performed works to the interconnecting distribution systems (ESPOIR) which offer the access through Internet to the train timetable, and there have been noticed progresses in the possibility to extend the purchasing of the tickets electronically. There is also noticed a quality increase of the standards in railway stations (Euro stations) and improvements of the access on the trains, starting to be impose a new international concept of the prices etc.
In point of the high speed trains, there have been achieved works that allow travel time reduction on conventional lines and also studies referring to the lines that will be modernized for 300 speeds, up to 350 km/h and there have been planned future high speed section in Europe.
For freight transport there has been a cooperation with CER and EU in order to develop the Railway Trans-European Freight Network (TERFN), the action plan aiming cars pollution reduction, aspect that has been applied by the agreement signed by UIC and chemical industry (CEFIC) in order to establish safety and quality criteria (Rail SQAS) in dangerous products transport. Other concerns in freight transport field have aimed the creation of a new hauling technology, of a detection system for turning off the tracks, and drawing up a preparing study in order to achieve a Rolling Stock Register where there are centralized the information referring to the approved vehicles for the international routes.
In point of interoperability there have been obtained an obvious progress noticed in the same time with the implementation of interoperability control commend for trains (ETCS) and of radio detection system for railway (GSM-R), which specifications have been defined in cooperation by UIC, supplying industry and European Union. There have been noticed similar progresses to the Technical Specifications for Interoperability in Europe (for high-speed trains), achieved by UNIFE and UE.
In safety field the directors in charge with this sector discussed about the joint interest of all parties (transport operators, infrastructure managers and so on) in order to provide safety in railway exploitation. There have been established the modality of cooperation between CER and EU referring to the recent directives of the Union with respect to the safety on the railway network.
Infrastructure management has been the central point of many actions, among which we can mention those that are aiming the reduction of costs for infrastructure - INFRACOST III Project.
The memorandum signed by UIC, CER and UNIFE presidents regarding the technical and research field aims to promote railway interoperability and research, by defining a common research strategy in Europe, sponsored by UIC, CER, UNIFE and UITP, that will be forwarded for approving to the European Commission.
In this category are included modernization works for rolling stock, braking system for freight trains, trains operation in difficult conditions, noxious emanations reduction from the environment, of the noise, but also power consume (study for innovation techniques for hauling etc.).
Environment and Economy, the last but one chapter of the Annual UIC Report treated the promotion of the INFRAS/IWWIT study with respect to the transport costs (accidents, environment costs and ambush), study published in March 2000, and of a brochure that pleads for the advantages offered by the railway with respect to the climate change and railway system influence in environment pollution reduction.
New technologies field also found its place in the Annual Report regarding the utilization of all opportunities offered by railway on Internet, electronic commerce and multimedia.
A big part of the UIC activity is concentrated on the development of the 10th corridors for pan-European transport and aligning them to real interoperability parameters, in technical and operational terms, of railways in Central and Eastern Europe. The most promising aspects for UIC members are connected to the development of these standards, as well as the implementation of the technical standards (ETCS and GSM-R) all over the world, and research programs in collaboration and the exchanges between the railway centers from the five continents and cooperation in human resources management.
UIC doubled its efforts in order to promote railway transport development on all the continents. In this respect there have been signed a series of conventions that define the frame where the cooperation with United Nations is developed, also with World Bank, BERD, research companies and other organizations that can contribute to the railway transport development.
UIC offered the assistance and experience of a large number of countries which decided to make their railway system more efficient and proposed itself to contribute more and more to intensify the relations between railway administrations from respective regions.