The seventh in a series of UIC ASEAN online meetings was held on 14 September and was dedicated to UIC expertise development and training activities.

Co-organised by UIC Asia Pacific and the UIC Talent and Expertise Development Unit, as well as in collaboration with the Passenger Department, through its Intercity and High Speed Unit, and UIC APRA members RUT of Russia and KORAIL of South Korea, it has been the occasion to share their expertise and introduce all the tools and relevant available tips to the UIC ASEAN members.

132 people registered for the event, of which at least 83 participants connected online, representing nine members (KAI, DJKA and MASKA from Indonesia, KTMB and MyHSR CORP from Malaysia, DOTR and PNR from the Philippines, SRT from Thailand and VNR from Vietnam, as well as future member NRCOE from Malaysia). Representatives from Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, India, Japan and South Korea (members and potential members), as well as universities from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, were also welcomed to the meeting.

The session was moderated by Mr Milko Papazoff, UIC ASEAN representative. Ms Nathalie Amirault, Head of the UIC Talent & Expertise Development Unit, gave a comprehensive presentation of UIC training activities and programmes and then presented the two main segments in detail:

Best practices in HR and training:

• Talent & Expertise Development Platform (TEDP).
• World Congress on Rail Training, Talent & Development (WCRT), which gathers some 200 participants from around the world on average. The next WCRT will be held in Moscow, Russia on 18-20 May 2022, hosted by RUT. WCRT 2022 will also feature the first TrainRail Hackathon (https://railtalent.org/train-rail-hackathon-2022/).
• The permanent observatory on people management trends was presented by Mr Miguel Faro Viana of IP (Portugal). The observatory is a TEDP initiative to encourage partnership among ASEAN UIC members and others to foster mutual and international collaboration on training and expertise. It plans to:
  • establish a joint venture with a university research centre, railway company or consultancy to launch its initiatives,
  • conduct the first ASEAN people and professionals survey for the railway sector.

Cooperation between academia and railway undertakings:

• TrainRail Vision, presented by Mr Evgeny Zarechkin of RUT (Russia), is a one-stop-shop for education, training and learning resources. One of the objectives of this platform is to make the railways attractive to the younger generation and develop young rail professionals through networking, exchanges and contests.
• Quality Expert Group, which has ambitious targets such as common quality criteria for training for UIC members and preparation of draft UIC International Railway Solutions (IRSs) (https://uic.org/standardisation/irs).
• The aim of the TrainRail Hackathon, presented by Ms Nathalie Amirault, is to create synergies between academia and the railway industry with the aim of supporting the attraction and retention of the best talent in the railway industry. In Asia-Pacific, preparations for the hackathon will be organised through SJWTU (Chengdu, China) and RUT (Moscow, Russia).

Ms Amirault put three questions to the participants in the form of a poll on the usefulness of the TEDP, which TEDP initiative would be most useful, and interest in launching the first survey from the permanent observatory in ASEAN. Around 50 participants responded to the poll questions.

There followed two further presentations.

The popular IRaTCA sessions are jointly organised on a regular basis by UIC and its member KORAIL (Korea), and Mr Inchul Beom of KORAIL recalled the history of these training programmes, in which UIC ASEAN members have become increasingly active. Further sessions are planned for 11-15 April 2022 in Seoul, Korea (railway’s role and national support against Covid-19) and in the second half of 2022 (railway passenger service based on IT technology).

UIC high-speed training was presented by Mr Philippe Lorand, UIC High-Speed Senior Advisor, who recalled the main objectives of the Inter-City & High Speed Committee (ICHSC), as well as the renowned training programmes on high-speed systems usually held every year in March/ April and in November/December (level 1 in Paris, France and level 2 in Madrid, Spain).

These presentations led to various questions from the participants, who were encouraged to delegate representatives to the different platforms and to contact and raise questions to those in charge at UIC.

The next UIC ASEAN online meeting has been delayed and will now take place in January 2022, focusing on UIC’s freight activities and its various platforms and tools.