The latest meeting of Commuter and Regional Train Services (CRTS) group was held on 13 September. There were representatives of PKP SKM, Euskotren, JR-East, BLS, Renfe, FGC and Korail. UIC was represented by Mrs Vanessa Pérez, Advisor for the same department and Euskotren kindly hosted the meeting at their headquarters in Atxuri Station.
The day before the CRTS group had the opportunity to visit, in conjunction with the UIC High Speed Committee, the site of the so-called “Basque Y”; the High-Speed network between the three main cities of the Basque Country to be connected with Madrid via Valladolid and France via Irun.
Two main issues were addressed during the meeting: the collaboration with the International Energy Agency (IEA), in which this group is involved with the help of the UIC Sustainability Unit and the organisation of the II Training in Commuter and Regional Trains Services to be held at the end of November in Rome, hosted by Trenitalia.
In addition to the project related to energy saving and CO2 emissions in railway transport and the organisation of the Training, the group is working to know the state of the art of ticketing different systems used by operators within UIC and the possibilities of extending interoperability, providing service to customers as it happens with the project interoperability of Basque cards Bat, Barik and Mugi, led by the transport authority of Basque Country.
On this occasion, Mr Ju Hyung Lee (Korail) gave the assistants the possibility to know more about the reality of the commuter and regional train services in Korea with a special focus on the importance of the customer services experience for his company.
The meeting ended with a Technical Visit to the Center of Management of Atxuri station where all the daily operation of the Commuter Train Services is controlled. This visit gave the opportunity to Mr Jorge Escoin (Euskotren) to introduce to the rest of the members the “begicrossing” – an innovative system, based on computer vision and artificial intelligence, that detects risk situations and anomalies in level crossings by processing the video signal coming from a camera focus on the crossing.
Over the next few months, the group will continue working in a continuous process of comparative evaluation of products, services and processes common to the railway operators of commuter and regional trains. This group is open to all UIC members, so do not hesitate to contact us should you wish to participate.
The next opportunity to join the group will be during the II Training on Commuter and Regional Trains to be held in Rome from 21 to 23 April hosted by Trenitalia and that will bring together authorities, industry, international organisations and operators to exchange their vision about the different elements involving the Commuter and Regional Train Services.
Secure your place at the Commuter and Regional Train Services Training by registering online at the link below, where you will also find the programme and practical information about the venue:
http://events.uic.org/training-on-commuter-and-regional-train-systems
