Continuing its successful series of regional web meetings, the UIC Asia-Pacific region hosted a session on resilience, safety, and operations – the 3rd technical session of the 2026 Asia-Pacific Web Series. The meeting provided UIC Asia-Pacific Region members an in-depth look at how UIC’s Safety Platform is structured and the regional projects it drives, and opened the floor for members to share their own experiences.

The session was opened by Philippe Lorand, Director of Institutional Relations, Advocacy and Communications, and Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Region at UIC, who welcomed participants from China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, Thailand, and beyond. He recalled that during the 40th UIC Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly (APRA) held on 25 June, Kim Tae Seung, President and CEO of Korail and UIC APRA Chair, and Sri Satish Kumar, Chair of the Railway Board at Indian Railways and UIC APRA Vice-Chair , both emphasised the importance of safety management and a robust safety culture as a core strategic priority for the region.

Introducing the UIC Safety Platform
Francisco Cabrera, Deputy Head of Operations and Safety at UIC, provided details on the Safety Platform, which brings together almost 60 members worldwide, and is chaired by David Gómez-Rey Romero, Chief Safety Officer at the Spanish Railway Infrastructure Manager (ADIF), with Dr Anne Mills, Deputy Director of System Safety and Health at Britain’s Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), serving as Vice-Chair. The Platform runs eight permanent working groups and 14 short-term Opt-in Projects involving around 30 active UIC members, and maintains dedicated safety cooperation links with all UIC regions, including Asia-Pacific.

He also explained that operational safety is a transversal activity at UIC, supporting the full project cycle from design through to operations and maintenance. This work is carried out in close coordination with the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA).

Safety culture, and human and organisational factors
Virginie Papillault, Head of Safety Culture and Human and Organisational Factors (HOF) at UIC, and Florence Magnin-Lot, Advisor for Safety Culture and Organisational Factors at UIC, presented the Safety Culture Peer Review programme, an approach inspired by the nuclear industry and developed with ERA before UIC took over its coordination in 2024. Peer reviews are conducted by international teams of 6 to 10 volunteer experts over five days at a host company, combining interviews, observation, and focus groups across all levels of the organisation to strengthen safety culture and produce a comprehensive report of strengths and areas for improvement. Reviews have already taken place at the National French Railways (SNCF), Lisea, Eurotunnel, German Railways (DB) Cargo France, and Trenitalia France, with one planned at SNCF Réseau in December.

Also presented were UIC’s HOF and Safety Culture training sessions, to be held in person in Paris this September, with online sessions available on request for members further afield, as well as Mind4Change 2, a new three-year project launched in April 2026 to build an interactive platform helping members anticipate and manage the human side of digital, technological, and societal change.

UIC safety tools, databases, and the Safety Hub
Iryna Polzikova, Head of Safety and Performance Databases at UIC, presented the UIC Safety Database, which today counts 37 contributing networks across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, feeding into the annual UIC Safety Report and benchmarking indicators for members. She also gave a live demonstration of the interactive UIC Safety Hub and its Power BI dashboards, and encouraged any Asia-Pacific networks not yet contributing to join the voluntary, free data-sharing initiative.

Resilience and climate adaptation: the RERA Hub
Konstantina Kopsalidou, Senior Advisor for Infrastructure and Asset Management at UIC, introduced Resilient Railways facing Climate Change (RERA), UIC’s framework for resilience to extreme weather, earthquakes, cyberattacks and wind, and the newly created RERA Hub, a permanent working group bringing together members from Finland, France, the UK, Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg, the US, Korea, Spain, and Poland around six pillars: Climate Intelligence and Decision Inputs; Risk and Criticality Assessment and Prioritisation; Adaptation Pathways; Economic Appraisal & Investment Prioritisation; Governance and Performance Measurement; and a cross cutting enabler: Digital, Data & AI. She presented findings from the completed RERA-Rain project, including a harmonised methodology for assessing flooding and landslide risk drawn from real incidents such as a landslide in Italy and a bridge collapse in Germany.

Cabrera followed this with an overview of RERA-Temp, examining the impact of extreme heat on track buckling, ballast contamination and vegetation growth, drawing on examples from Spain’s ADIF, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland. He also introduced RERA-Quake, developed with infrastructure managers from Chile, Italy, Turkey, and Japan to address safety standards for moderate earthquakes.

He was joined by Giancarlo De Marco Telese, Deputy Head of the Safety Unit at UIC, who presented a wind-tunnel research project with the University of Birmingham and Politecnico di Milano, launched in response to the Great Belt Bridge accident, to develop characteristic wind curves for freight trains carrying semi-trailers.

Global safety awareness campaigns: ILCAD and TRESPAD
Isabelle Fonverne, Senior Advisor, Safety and Interoperability at UIC, presented UIC’s two global awareness campaigns: International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD), tackling level crossing safety through the 60-member Global Level Crossing Network, and Trespass Awareness Day (TRESPAD), addressing trespass and suicide prevention, which together respond to incidents that account for the vast majority of railway accidents caused by third parties. Fonverne then shared campaign videos and this year’s slogan, “Alert Today, Safe Tomorrow” alongside examples of member activities from Mongolian Ulaanbaatar Railways (UBTZ) and Indian Railways, and looked back at the first joint ILCAD and TRESPAD Launch Conference held in Paris from 9 to 10 June, which brought together 160 delegates, 44 speakers, and 29 countries.

Hearing from Asia-Pacific members
In the session’s interactive segment, SunHee (Caitlin) Kim, Principal Researcher at the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI), shared her institute’s experience building an Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity certification process for Korea’s railways as the country’s government-designated safety certification body, and raised detailed questions on risk matrix methodology, certification levels, and threat scenarios as Korea contributes to UIC’s RERA Cyber project. Cabrera then confirmed that cybersecurity is tackled at UIC across three complementary strands: IT systems through the Cybersecurity Solutions Platform (CSSP) run by the Telecom and Signalling Unit, passenger and staff impact through the Security Unit, and operational technology through RERA Cyber. He also welcomed KRRI’s continued contribution given the value of insights from beyond Europe.

Looking forward
Cabrera outlined key upcoming milestones for Asia-Pacific members:

• The International Railway Safety Council, to be held in Lisbon in 2026 after last year’s edition in Hong Kong
• The Suicide Prevention webinar on 3 November 2026
• The Safety Platform Plenary Session at UIC Headquarters in Paris on 4 November 2026, open to online participation
• The 2027 ILCAD and TRESPAD Launch Conferences in Porto, Portugal, from 2 to 4 June

Finally, he invited members to reach out to the Safety Unit, and reiterated that any Asia-Pacific member is welcome to join the Safety Platform’s working groups, opt-in projects, or the Platform itself. Closing the session, Yuke Li, UIC Asia-Pacific Regional Advisor, then thanked members across the Asia-Pacific time zones for their commitment, and encouraged attendees to share the information within their organisations.