The European Management Committee (EMC) of UIC, the worldwide railway organisation, gathered in Rome on 19 February with participants from major European railways operators attending both in person and online.
This meeting was the first EMC under the new Chairmanship of Luigi Ferraris, CEO of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, (FS), Italy’s state-owned railway operator. Mr Ferraris was appointed by the UIC Regional Assembly Europe in December 2023 for a two-year mandate.
Under the new chairmanship, the roadmap for the European Region of UIC was agreed. The roadmap addresses the shared hurdles and objectives that UIC members face and want to overcome with a sector approach. The common shared objectives, which in most cases form part of the individual strategic programmes cater for:
- Enhanced mobility for passengers
- Connectivity and integration
- Rail as resilient backbone for transport and economic growth
- Modal shift and climate protection
- Financial sustainability
The Rome discussions addressed the initial three topics, which all contribute to increasing customer satisfaction and the robustness of the system:
The roll out of the UIC-CER-CIT ticketing roadmap, the aim of which is to implement:
- A seamless and easy access to all trip-related information in real time, ahead and throughout the journey,
- The need to exchange best practices on digital twin use cases developed by the sector and the importance to have standardisation so to make the best use of existing data,
- The digital transformation of the rail freight sector to support modal shift objectives with the DP-Rail project as its cornerstone (dp-rail.eu).
“I am pleased to host in Rome the kick-off meeting of the 2024-2025 European Management Committee – commented Luigi Ferraris, CEO of Ferrovie dello Stato and Chairman of the UIC Europe Region – today alongside major European players in the industry we will discuss the challenges facing ahead and that will impact the railway transport and the entire mobility system at European level and beyond. Our central aim is to strengthen the railway system so as to foster economic growth and attract new investments, with innovation and digitalisation as key enabler for the transformation of Europe’s mobility.”
UIC Director General François Davenne added:
“What we’re doing in Europe is important for the rest of the world. Europe is the frontrunner – and will continue to be the frontrunner – for all the regions, as all our regional projects will eventually become global. Europe needs an integrated network, and a strategy for each important component of the network, which can be achieved with the input of the railways, so that together we can design a transport paradigm for a carbon-neutral future.”
Sandra Géhénot, UIC Director Europe led the discussions on the roadmap implementation with the support of the member railways.
The meeting welcomed the high-level participation of UIC member railways and partner organisations across Europe including ADIF, CP, DB, FS Italiane, LDz, MAV, Network Rail, ÖBB, PKP, ProRail, SNCF, SNCB, EIM as well as UIC HQ.
Andreas Matthä participated in the meeting in his capacity as Chair of CER.
Beyond the topical discussion, the EMC meeting had the pleasure to confirm the nomination of Jean-Pierre Farandou, President of SNCF, to the UIC Executive Board. He will represent the European Region alongside the Chair, Luigi Ferraris, CEO FS, the Vice-Chair, Martin Frobisher, Group Safety & Engineering Director, Network Rail, and Zoltan Pafféri, Chairman-CEO, MAV.
