This first seminar starting the week was dedicated to UIC Asia-Pacific Projects held on 20 May.
Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux gave his welcoming speech: “New technologies have the potential to make our roads and transit systems safer, greener and more efficient,” Since the APRA (Asia Pacific Regional Assembly) Vision Strategy 2050 was adopted, APRA members act accordingly, to develop the cooperation and integration in the region in defined strategical zones such as improving data quality, exchange of best practice and technologies, cooperation and partnership, skills improvement.
APRA members have demonstrated increasing activity in development and implementation of projects in following areas such as:
1. Cost reduction and efficiency improvement
2. Harmonisation and standardisation
3. Strategy Business on Rail Passenger transport
4. Regional Integration
5. Research and Innovation
6. Quality and Customers
7. Sustainability Development (Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Mobility & Green Economy)
8. Urban Development
9. Safety
10. Security
11. Skills and expertise development
And our project incubator includes more than 20 projects today. Using the incubator as an instrument to evaluate the current needs for members and for the region. It helps APRA members to get the exchange of information and to benchmark, think about harmonisation, standardisation, technical studies. All mentioned issues are of top priority for APRA members and for our regional partners. (…)”.
The first part of the day gave an overview of the Status of the Projects for 2018-2019. The session was introduced by Mr Vincent Vu, Chairman of the session, UIC Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Region.
Presentations were given by KRRI, VNIIZhT, NIIAS, KTZ and CARS on topics such as regulation, railway infrastructure, rail maintenance, signalling systems, cybersecurity and big data.
Mr Michael Zhao, APRA (Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly) Chairman’s Officer, listed the principles of the APRA Projects Management Team (APRA PMT). He mentioned the APRA project incubator developed by APRA Members and UIC Headquarters and proposed the creation of an APRA PMT represented by dedicated APRA experts who shall facilitate the process of selection and implementation of APRA projects for integration and interoperability of the railway community as well as provide the expert evaluation for project results.
Mrs Irina Petrunina, UIC Representative for CIS countries, spoke about the APRA project Incubator 2019-2020 upgraded in the framework of the Asia-Pacific Vision 2050, focusing on safety and standardisation.
The second part of the day was dedicated to the APRA projects for regional integration.
The projects for 2020 were presented in the order received at UIC HQ with the original deadline being 4 April 2019. Presentations were given on heavy Haul, Digital railways, Unicoupling, Crossapp etc.
Mr Marc Guigon, UIC Passenger Director, gave four presentations. He presented the Third Year Plan Programme for the passenger activities focused on multimodality, digitalisation and customer services. He also introduced the project concerning guidelines on operational efficiency for new and existing high-speed rail. He spoke in his third presentation about the customer experience management which is expected to improve the overall customer experience in the railway sector. Finally, he talked about the TopRail project to increase the attractiveness of rail tourism.
The results and proposal for APRA were then proposed with presentations on many topics concerning asset management, safety, high-speed rail, intelligent railways, predictive maintenance, block chain, inter-university cooperation for enhanced railway cooperation by BJTU, KTZ, CR, CARS, SWJTU.
Mrs Sandra Géhénot, UIC Freight Director, presented the project on ETSI Electronic Seal Interoperability whose concept is to guarantee the integrity of freight transport. This would make international railway corridor more attractive.
Mr Francis Bédel, UIC Chief Digital Officer, and Mrs Sandra Géhénot talked about the project on blockchain for smart business. Stakeholders in international rail freight could provide data on the selected East-West corridor.
Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux delivered his concluding words proposing to create a database concerning the safety issue. He added that more than 22 projects were presented. In order to push them we need resources to more transform them into deliverables. The PMT Project is a good idea to liaise with UIC through the Project Management Officer (PMO). There are a lot of partners like the OSJD and universities with whom we should work on our projects.
