The IMPRESS project, co-funded by the European Union and coordinated by the UIC Security Division, held its second Consortium Meeting on 23 January 2024 and its second stakeholder workshop on 23 – 24 January 2024, in Warsaw, Poland and online.
Representatives from each consortium partner (UIC, DHPol, FS, NS, PKP S.A. and SNCB) attended both meetings, with members of the Advisory Board (DB, Infrabel, RPF of Indian Railways, SNCF, SBB, Trafikverket, COLPOFER, RAILPOL, Region Stockholm, PTBN, French fire brigade, German Federal Police) joining for the workshop.
During the consortium meeting, the project team reported on the progress made since September 2023. With the work of collecting the security training needs and requirements successfully completed, the partners discussed the ongoing work on the curriculum development for the training programmes to combat terrorism and other major events in the rail environment.
The hybrid “Taxonomy of threat and set of scenarios definition” workshop began with a key-note speech from Dr Damian Szlachter, from the Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (Internal Security Agency of Poland), who shared his conclusions for building resistance to hybrid threats in rail transport after hostile reconnaissance of railway facilities in Poland in 2023.
The workshop was then divided into two main sessions. The first session focused on defining a common threat taxonomy, intended for categorizing and understanding threats systematically based on variables like likelihood, severity, detectability and trainability. Workshop participants divided into four groups and each applied the taxonomy to relevant rail security threats as previously identified by the project.
The second session was dedicated to the development of a set of scenarios which should be the basis of the IMPRESS training modules. DHPol (German Police University) started the session by presenting 10 draft scenarios. Then, thanks to active participation from those present, discussions about the validity of the scenarios and ways to further improve them were discussed.
In conclusion, the meetings offered the opportunity to improve the threat taxonomy and develop together relevant preliminary scenarios for rail security trainings, both of which will contribute to the IMPRESS training modules. This task is ongoing, with a third workshop planned for late February 2024 on the topic of “global training programme/curriculum design.” UIC members interested in attending the workshop and joining the IMPRESS Advisory Board are invited to contact our team for more information.
Many thanks to PKP S.A. for hosting the meeting at their Headquarters in Warsaw.
You can follow IMPRESS on:
Twitter/X: @IMPRESS_RAIL_EU
LinkedIn: IMPRESS_RAIL_EU
The web: https://impress-rail-project.eu/
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
