The UIC Security Platform kicked off the new year with meetings from the Crisis Management Working Group (CMWG) and the New Technologies Working Group (NTWG).
The second meeting of the CMWG took place on 24 – 25 January and was hosted by the chair, Ewa Wójcik, PKP S.A., in Warsaw, Poland, and online. The meeting topic was security aspects of migrant crises. Over 30 participants from five UIC regions, as well as representatives of FRONTEX (the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders), participated actively in the discussions.
After welcome words from the chair and the vice chair, Munawar Khursheed from the Railway Protection Force of Indian Railways, a keynote speech was given by Dr Damian Szlachter from the Internal Security Agency of Poland on lessons learned from hostile reconnaissance of railway facilities in Poland in 2023. He shared insights on how the large influx of Ukrainian refugees impacted intelligence gathering and the key role the railways play in responding to such challenges.
Continuing the conversation on migrant crisis, Laura Petersen (UIC) shared the conclusions of the 2015 European Refugee Crisis workshop and Daria Kardel (PKP S.A.) highlighted the work carried out by the UIC Refugees Task Force in response to the Ukrainian migrant crisis, including the publication of the guidance document. Galina Bolich (DB) then presented on Deutsche Bahn’s management of the Ukrainian refugee crisis and associated challenges. Looking to the North American perspective, Mary Carlson Bis (Amtrak) gave a presentation on Amtrak’s response to the Title 42 overview.
Talking more generally about crisis management, Daniel Schlup (SBB) presented on his experience with implementing ISO 22361 on crisis management, followed by Jakub Eichler (SŽ CZ) on implanting ISO 22301 on business continuity. The meeting was also the occasion to formally approve the working programme 2023-25 and launch the work on the business continuity deliverable. The meeting also included a presentation by Wójcik on the impact of the Ukrainian migration crisis on security at the Przemyśl Glówny border rail station and a study visit to the Railway Station Security Center of PKP S.A. The next CMWG meeting is planned for Spring 2024.
On 29 January, the NTWG, chaired by Armand Raudin (SNCF), met online to validate the 2024 activity roadmap, with it being agreed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be this year’s focus. The Chairman then presented about SNCF’s technological ambitions for the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Bruno De Rosa (UIC) presented to the audience a draft survey on AI applications for rail security. Looking ahead, the survey will be circulated to all UIC Security Platform members in order to better assess the current state of implementation of AI related technologies in the rail security domain, as well as to foresee the related future challenges and potential opportunities. The results of this survey will be presented during a webinar on AI for railway security, which will be held on 25 April. On the same topic, a guidance document about potential use cases will be also delivered later this year.
The NTWG will meet again towards the end 2024, taking the occasion to share and discuss the relevant experiences about the Olympic Games, especially in connection with the experimentation of new technologies.
