Security

General context of the business activity

Security has become increasingly important: from everyday crime which creates feelings of insecurity that discourage people from taking the train and affect social links and the need for territorial planning, to the most serious terrorist threats capable of causing numerous deaths and destabilising countries.

Key challenges facing this business

Alongside national, European and international public authorities, the railway sector has a specific and complementary role to play in protecting and developing railway activities.

This role is both national and international and the challenge is to ensure greater coherence in an environment involving an increasing number of players due to the opening up of markets and evolution of businesses.

Strategic objectives

In this context the security platform will benefit to UIC members by:

• Raising awareness in the railway sector of this increasingly important issue;
• Developing networks of experts;
• Sharing experience among UIC members to identify the best solutions and adapt them to each specific situation;
• Ensuring coherence between different security policies to help the development of international traffic;
• Elaborating recommendations regarding technologies, human factors and organisation;
• Developing responses from across the rail sector vis-à-vis and in partnership with European and other international institutions;
• Running research projects of interest to UIC security experts or representing the rail sector in research projects.

How the business is organised

The Platform was created by the UIC General Assembly in June 2006 and restructured in 2008 at a global level.

From July 2024 to June 2026, the platform is chaired by SNCF (France) and vice-chaired by RPF (Indian Railways Protection Force).

It is organised with:

• The annual congress to take stock of the work carried out and to propose future priorities.
• The Steering Committee which meets every quarter involving the UIC regions (the special Colpofer group for Europe, representatives from the other UIC regions), department activities (passenger, freight, rail system/infrastructure) and professional and political partners (UITP, RAILPOL, CER, EIM, etc.).
• Three permanent working groups (Technology, Human factor, Strategy)
• Two ad hoc working groups at the request of UIC (SIA on Sabotage / Intrusion / Attack, Crisis Management).