THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYS n°142 - 14th May 2009 Environment / Sustainable Development UIC Sustainability Platform: 7th meeting held in Paris On May 12th the UIC Environment, Energy and Sustainability (EES) Platform held its 7th meeting at UIC Headquarters in Paris. The meeting was opened by Jean-Pierre Loubi- noux, the new Director General of UIC, who em- phasised the importance of Sustainability as one of the outstanding assets of the railways in com- petition with other modes and the further deve- lopment of the railway system worldwide. He stressed that the concept of Sustainability defini- tively has to include beside environmental issues a series of important challenges as the social From left to right: Mr Henning Schwarz, UIC Team Coordinator Environ- ment and Sustainability, Mr Joachim Kettner, DB AG, Chairman of the role of railways, the impact on economy, etc. UIC EES Platform and Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General. In the new organisation chart he prepared for UIC Headquarters, Sustainable Development will be part of an important Department dedicated to ‘Fundamental Values’ serving the society as a whole. Jean-Pierre Loubinoux also referred to the message recently delivered by the new UIC Chairman Yoshio Ishida, Vice Chairman of JR East (a railway com- pany with an ambitious strategy in the sustainability field). At the latest UIC General Assembly meeting Mr Yoshio Ishida highlighted that UIC must help ex- ploit the effectiveness of the railways in helping to overcome current global environmental problems. Joachim Kettner, Deutsche Bahn AG, Chairman of the UIC EES Platform, appreciated this statement on general orientations and expressed the impor- tance of the role of UIC as facilitator for know-how sharing between UIC members worldwide. But he also underlined the necessity to find a good balance between the needs of the different regions of the world in this field. 1 Henning Schwarz, UIC Team Coordinator Envi- ronment and Sustainability at UIC, presented the first draft of the UIC Environment & Sustainability Strategy 2030, which will be further developed du- ring the year and is foreseen for adoption by the platform on the next meeting on 22nd of October. The scope of this first version of the strategy will focus on Europe, but it is foreseen to be embedded into the global strategy of UIC at a later stage. The “Train to Copenhagen” communication cam- paign towards the United Nations climate change From left to right: Margrethe Sagevik, UIC Senior Advisor Sustainable Development, Henning Schwarz, UIC Team Coordinator Environment conference which will take place 7-18 December and Sustainability and and Joachim Kettner, DB AG, Chairman of the 2009 in Copenhagen (COP 15) was presented by EES Platform Margrethe Sagevik, UIC Senior Advisor Sustainable Development. The project provides an international campaigning framework to convey messages about “the climate is right for rail”, and that “rail is a part of the solution” for combating the CO2-emissions from the transport sector. In the afternoon a special session was dedicated to railway infrastructure related environmental issues. Willy Bontinck from SNCB presented the draft me- thodology for the management of non-traction energy consumption (stations, workshops, buil- dings etc.) and Marco Gianettoni, NITEL together with Raul Carlsson, eco2win presented the EU- funded Infraguider project, which will develop wi- thin the next two years a guideline for the efficient handling of infrastructure related environmental as- pects, similar to the UIC leaflet 345 for rolling From left to right: Willy Bontick, SNCB and Ulrich Olstermayer, DB AG stock. Matthew Ledbury, CER updated the audience on the latest developments on environment related re- gulations in Brussels. He mentioned in particular the Climate Change Package and its implication for the railway sector and the Eurovignette Direc- tive. The UIC EES Platform is the ‘crossroad’ of all pro- jects and activities related to environment energy From left to right: Joelle Tournebise, SNCF and Celia Levy, SNCF and sustainability. The working bodies of the Plat- form are the following 5 Expert Networks: • Sustainable Mobility (speaker Margrethe Sage- vik, UIC) • Noise reduction (speaker Matthias Mather, DB) • Emissions reduction (speaker Willy Bontinck, SNCB) • Polluted soils and remediation (speaker Harold Resida, NS) • Energy Efficiency & CO2 (speaker Henning Schwarz, UIC) n°142 - 14th May 2009 2 During the meeting the network speakers pre- sented the 2009 and foreseen 2010 projects and budget report, with focus on the development of railways strategies for sustainable development and technical support to our members. This inclu- ded among others Energy, CO2, Noise and Emission reduction strategies as well as the fur- ther development of the UIC EcoTools (EcoPas- senger and EcoTransIT) and adaptation of rail infrastructure to climate change (UIC project ARISCC). Finally, Henning Schwarz informed about the Energy Efficiency Days 2009 Conference from 23-26 September in Tours, France. This unique conference includes the mid-term conference of the EU-funded Railenergy project, the 4th UIC Energy Efficiency Conference and the final conference of the TRAINER project on eco-driving. The Energy Efficiency Days 2009 are co-organised by UIC and SNCF. From left to right: Ian Papworth, ATOC, Simon Fletcher, UIC, Arto Hovi, RHK and Susanne Kiovujarvi, RHK For further information and registration please visit www.energy-efficiency-days.org. The next meeting of the EES platform will take place on 22nd of October 2009 at UIC in Paris. For more information please contact Henning Schwarz, UIC Team Coordinator Environment & Sustainability: [email protected] High Speed Rail UIC High Speed Plenary Committee meeting (Paris, 29 April) The last 29th April the spring meeting of the UIC’s High Speed Plenary Committee was held. This committee steers the activity on high speed and meets twice a year.It attracted a large number of participants, with a total of 29 attendants, including representatives from 18 countries and UIC staff. The UIC Director General, Mr. Jean-Pierre Loubi- noux, addressed a welcome speech, in which, after a quick explanation concerning the recent events at UIC, he underlined the importance of high speed transport for UIC members. This is why the UIC high speed activity will gain more impor- From left to right: Ignacio Barron de Angoiti, UIC Director of High Speed tance. Department, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General, Michel Le- boeuf, SNCF, Chairman of the UIC High Speed Group During the meeting, discussions were developed on current and future studies, both those carried by working teams and those carried by external consultants. Among the first group, studies are being produced on “High speed under extreme cli- mate conditions”, “Requirements for future high speed rolling stock” and the production of a “High speed handbook”, to be used by future UIC High Speed members. Considering the importance of several subjects proposed by the members, studies were launched on technical, social and environmental issues: “Maintenance of high speed lines” (addressed to strategic planners of future projects), “High speed and the city”, “High speed and territory manage- ment” and “High speed and sustainable mobility”. The majority of these projects will be finished by the end of 2009. The conclusions will probably be used in the future World Congress on High Speed. Other activities, like statistics, Training Seminar, European-Asian technical workshop and the orga- nisation of the next World Congress, were also dis- cussed. On the left: Mr OU, Chin-Der, CEO of THSRC, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation, making a presentation n°142 - 14th May 2009 4 High Speed Rail Development Apart from the possible impacts on transport flows, the global economic crisis stimulates governments to use new high speed projects as instruments to develop new value add economic activity, with signi- ficant positive social effects, in terms of sustainable mobility and employment. At present situation shows that world high speed network will double the number of kilometres of lines and industry will also develop new advancements and productions. Regions as USA, South America and South Western Asia are preparing their strategy to launch new projects, generally including innovative financial formulas. The following figures are quite meaningful (May 2009): High speed in operation for 250 km/h or more: 10.703 km High speed lines under construction: 13.505 km High speed planned: 15.579 (not taking into account projects in USA and India). During 2009, the starting of commercial operation of 3.131 kilometers of new lines (430 have already been inaugurated) is expected. Statistics concerning high speed traffic in Europe, whose 2008 figures have just been pu- blished, shows a 10 % growth compared to the precedent year. In 2008, 98.6 billions of passengers km were transpor- ted thanks to high speed rail in Europe. Source: UIC Training Seminar on High Speed Rail Systems The next edition of the traditional UIC high speed training will be held in Paris, UIC Headquarters, from the 8th to 12 th June 2009 and a technical visit will be organised on Saturday 13th June to visit the Tha- lys system. During a full week of works, over 50 speakers from 15 countries will meet to discuss all the elements included in a high speed rail system. It addresses decision makers, planners and high level technicians, and intends to give a detailed global overview of all those elements and to share experiences from high speed systems from all around the world. The Training is open to everyone willing to participate and the participants should attend then all the ses- sions. For more information please contact Ignacio Barron de Angoiti: [email protected] Full information on the Training Seminar is available on UIC website: http://www.uic.org/baseinfo/reunion/reunion.php?id=61697 n°142 - 14th May 2009 5 Signalling INESS Project (INtegrated European Signalling System) The INESS Steering Board met on 7 May at UIC.