On 1 February 2024, the UIC Security Division, represented by Marie-Hélène Bonneau and Grigore Havarneanu, attended the European Commission Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) EU Rail Passenger Security Platform (RAILSEC) 10th Working Party on Rail Security meeting in Brussels.
The role of the RAILSEC group is to provide the Commission with advice and expertise on matters relating to the security of rail passengers in train stations and on board trains within the European Union, as well as to facilitate the coordination and cooperation with and between Member States in this respect.
For this particular meeting, DG MOVE invited UIC to present the EU-funded Unobtrusive Technologies for Secure and Seamless Border Crossing for Travel Facilitation (ODYSSEUS) project. Grigore Havarneanu, UIC Senior Research Advisor, gave an overview of the project and highlighted its added value for the rail sector and for Europe’s railway land borders.
ODYSSEUS is working to improve the border crossing experience for travellers and border authority staff, while enhancing the security and monitoring of journeys across EU external land and sea borders.
Within the project, UIC acts as a general representative of rail end-users through its Security Division and Platform, and has already helped to gather the railway sector’s needs and requirements with respect to border security and to define rail use cases. UIC will also lead the pilot run at the train border with a particular focus on the seamless verification of passenger identities. This will take place in the first quarter of 2025 and preparations will commence this summer.
At the end of the presentation, all of the stakeholders present at the meeting were invited to join the project’s User Community which is open to new end-users, industrial partners and, research organisations active in border management.
The ODYSSEUS project has received funding from European Union’s Horizon Europe Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement N°101073910.
You can follow ODYSSEUS on Twitter/X (@odysseus_heu), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/odysseusproject-heu/), and via the project website https://odysseusproject.eu/.
