On 12 April the Freight Forum held its first meeting of the year at UIC in Paris. UIC Director General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux opened the meeting and warmly welcomed the participants. He highlighted events and key activities in the area of freight and invited forum members to the first international Oil Rail & Ports Conference hosted by RAI in Tehran from 15 – 16 May. Jean-Pierre Loubinoux thanked the outgoing Freight Forum Chairman Reinhard Bamberger for his excellent services to UIC and its members.
The following issues in particular were discussed:
- The Freight Forum’s three-year work programme
- CEO Task Force, created by HLFM in May 2015 to tackle the most important issues that freight is currently addressing in Europe
- Quality Management System implemented at UIC and changes to the Opt-in Process
New Projects for 2017:
- e-Wag, interoperability for intelligent wagons through a standardised and harmonised communication
- eRail Freight 2: adaptation to UCC, RID and TAF and Europe-wide roll-out
- Brake tests for the holding force of composite brake blocks
- EU Project SETRIS (Strengthening European Transport Research and Innovation Strategies)
- EU Project THRIVE: “Technical Horizons” for rail services and products
- Upcoming Global Rail Freight Conference in Rotterdam (22 – 23 June 2016) http://www.grfc2016.com
Status reports on issues from the Freight Study Groups and Special Groups
- Study Group Wagon Users (Nicola Czernecki)
- Combined Transport Group (Sandra Géhénot)
- Study Group Operation (Roland Hartkopf)
- ATTI (Bernard Schmitt)
All presentations are available for the Freight Forum members on the UIC extranet.
The next meetings are:
- 20 – 21 April 2016: High Level Freight Meeting/Vienna
- 10 October 2016: Freight Steering/Paris UIC HQ
- 15 November 2016: Freight Forum/Paris, UIC HQ
