The seventh training session on railway maintenance was held over a two-week period from 9 to 20 November. More than 70 participants from 17 countries attended the session to take part in training provided by four UIC experts and 12 ONCF experts.
Mr Frédéric Henon, UIC Head of Operations and Safety, presented railway safety culture, focusing on risk comparison and monitoring, analysis and modelling of risks as well as the generic process of risk management, and presented standards and examples of reliability in human activities.
Ms Mercedes Guttierrez, UIC Track and Structures and Train Track Interaction Sector Coordinator, presented the T&S Sector’s ongoing projects and activities, focusing on the Track Expert Group and Panel of Structural Experts. Together with her colleagues, she also presented the MILA project: “Harmonised Methodology for Infrastructure Lifetime Assessment”. The project involves a critical study of existing formulations and data relating to the ageing of the various railway components and the main factors that enable prediction of the actual life of a particular asset. Ms Guttierrez also provided details of research into track degradation models and lessons learned.
During the closing session, Mr Thierry Béra, UIC African Region Coordinator, noted that the UIC African Region had been organising railway maintenance training sessions for more than seven years. He congratulated the organisers, who had managed to adapt to the new circumstances brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic by organising online sessions attracting greater numbers of participants, and expressed a hope that the next session would be organised in Rabat to enable technical visits. He reminded participants that UIC had created a Covid-19 taskforce and invited them to join the group, which is currently implementing best practices for the post-Covid-19 era:
